


Complementary

by Phantom_Ice



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Almost Kiss, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Jealous Oikawa Tooru, M/M, Oikawa Tooru Being Oikawa Tooru, Oikawa Tooru does not believe in 'fate', Pining Oikawa Tooru, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Trope Subversion/Inversion, how is that not already a tag?, oikawa being a drama queen, yet they still managed to get into this situation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_Ice/pseuds/Phantom_Ice
Summary: One day, Iwaizumi Hajime met his soulmate, and Oikawa managed to convince himself that his window of opportunity had closed.But when Iwa-chan didn't fall head over heels into his soulmate's arms, Oikawa figured maybe one (1) high school conversation wasn't something he should be basing the rest of his life around. Maybe it's time to dig deeper. Maybe 'soulmates' didn't have to be the cage Oikawa had been thinking of them as.





	1. The End and the Beginning (lol. i saw a chance and i took it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IwaOi hell, here I come.

The night after Iwaizumi found his soulmate, Oikawa cried himself to sleep.

The next morning, he stared up at the blurry ceiling of his borrowed bedroom and took a few deep breaths. This was happening. He would have to cope with the explosive death of the hope he had been daring to cultivate. It had been stupid of him to think they could maybe be… that is, if he had been Iwa-chan’s soulmate, he should have known it by now. Deep down Oikawa must have known that it had to be someone else. And yet. And yet…

Soulmates were complicated things. There were hundreds, even thousands, of different soulmate marks. They ranged from the ever popular ‘first words’ to the convenient ‘timers’ to the ‘colorizers’. Sometimes people knew who their soulmate was from the moment they meet, but sometimes it took a little longer. Sometimes it took months to stumble across the link that would mark two people as soulmates.

Was it so much to think-- to hope-- that sometimes it took years? Neither Oikawa nor Hajime had been born with any physical sign of their soulmate. Wasn’t it reasonable to believe that one day something would happen that would mark them as each other’s?

Apparently so.

He had never hated the words ‘Thank you, and you are a very dependable spiker' as much as he did reading them-- red and raw-- off Iwa-chan’s back. (He felt like he was being mocked. Words that he must have said to Iwa-chan a million times over, but all in vain. It didn’t help that Iwa-chan words of ‘You’ll be first string setter in no time’ proceeded them. It wasn’t fair. That could have been Oikawa, it could have been).

Looking back, he should have known. It was stupid. It was his own fault for hoping. His own fault for thinking even for a moment that he and Iwa-chan might...

Oikawa swallowed a sob and snapped around so that he could growl into the pillow. He held the sheets bunched up tight to his chest. He wondered bitterly if Iwa-chan would give the bed he was sleeping in to him as soon as Oikawa went back home. Or maybe they wouldn’t even bother. Iwa-chan’s bed was a few steps away; they could skip straight to sharing.

Oikawa stuck out his tongue in disgust but only succeeded in making his mouth taste like salt and laundry detergent.

It wasn’t fair.

He knew no one else would ever compliment Iwa-chan’s serious, but also somewhat restless, personality the same way Oikawa did. Oikawa knew he would never feel this comfortable letting someone else see all his rampant insecurities. He knew he would never love anyone else this much. So why…?

Oikawa remembered the end of their second year of high school. He remembered that moment of grief and high tension in the privacy of his bedroom where they had put their hands on each other’s cheeks and Hajime had leaned in and... Would Iwa-chan look at him that way now?

It wasn’t fair.

All Oikawa had wanted was to see Iwa-chan’s new volleyball courts. He hadn’t signed up to watch his own heart shatter. He hadn’t signed up to watch himself lose Iwa-chan; especially not to someone with whom he was a personality away from being the same person. It felt like the universe was telling him he and Iwa-chan were incompatible in a way that Oikawa couldn't fix. His superficial traits were fine, but his personality-- his own fundamental being-- had lost him Iwa-chan. He hadn’t signed up for all that. He hadn’t signed up for people to no longer think of Oikawa when they thought of Iwa-chan’s gorgeous gifted setter.

He hadn’t signed up for Akaashi Keiji.

He hated Akaashi Keiji.

He hated that Akaashi Keiji was tall (only a centimeter away from Oikawa and with room to grow). He hated that Akaashi Keiji was a setter (and a good one, at that). He hated that Akaashi Keiji was beautiful (Oikawa had spent the time before bed examining the mirror trying to, objectively, decide who was prettier. In the end, he was forced to admit it was all a matter of taste, and fate had made Iwa-chan’s clear).

He hated that Akaashi Keiji was Iwaizumi Hajime’s soulmate (Because he hated that he and Akaashi Keiji were a personality away from being the same person. He hated that he couldn’t tell himself that Iwa-chan’s soulmate wasn’t meant to be a man, or pretty, or taller than him, or even that they weren't meant to be athletic. Oikawa hated that he could no longer deny that, to Iwa-chan, for Iwa-chan, Oikawa’s fundamental personality was… lacking.)

“Oi! I’m heading off to practice. Don’t burn down my apartment while I’m gone! You’ll have to explain it to my roommates!” Iwa-chan shouted through the door. He didn’t sound any different than usual, and for some reason that eased some of the hurt in Oikawa’s chest. But Iwa-chan was going to practice… practice where Akaashi Keiji (who Iwa-chan had spent the whole night talking to, only glancing at Oikawa) was.

“Wait!” Oikawa ignored the shiver that ran through his body as his bare feet hit the cold floor of his borrowed room. “I’ll go watch!”

“Wha--” Oikawa cut off Iwa-chan’s response by throwing open the door and rushing straight past him in a dive to the bathroom. Oikawa never spent less than half an hour styling his hair, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

“Oikawa, it’s just a normal morning practice, you don’t have to--”

“But Iwa-chan! What kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t support you in front of your team!” Half the sentence came out gurgled from the toothbrush Oikawa stuck in his mouth, but the loud sigh and the thump of a bag that traveled through the door told him he had communicated his point.

“A normal one?... Ugh. I’m giving you five minutes and then I’m leaving without you.”

Oikawa yelped and brushed faster. He didn’t want to imagine what he looked like when he stumbled back to the room to shrug on some clothes. His hair was only sparingly teased. He didn’t even take the time to pop in his contacts, instead sliding his glasses over the bridge of his nose. When Oikawa made it to the front door after a total of fifteen minutes, Iwa-chan was still there looking annoyed but not leaving. It made something warm crawl through Oikawa.

“Let’s go, Iwa-chan~!”

Iwa-chan blinked at him twice. Without thinking about it, Oikawa reached his hand up to fix his hair some more since it was probably awful and maybe it would be worth it to go back for the contacts and scrub his face and put some concealer under his eyes... What if he was oily and gross and his eyes were still irritated from crying and--?

“Why the hell do you always take years to get ready in the morning if you could just--” Iwa-chan cut off both his words and the vague gesture he was making with his hand towards Oikawa. “Nevermind.” He about-faced to the door and started out without giving Oikawa another look.

His ears were a little red though.

That warm feeling in Oikawa's chest escalated.

Fifteen minutes later, when they were in the gymnasium and Iwa-chan shoved Oikawa towards the stands to made a beeline for his new pretty setter, the warmth vanished.

Akaashi and Iwa-chan couldn't spend much time together once practice started, much to Oikawa's grim satisfaction (he was maybe starting to see why Iwa-chan so often unfairly accused him of sometimes having a less than angelic personality). Iwa-chan was second string now, and Akaashi had only recently joined. They didn't practice with each other and they were often on separate courts even for drills. And yet... Oikawa was far from satisfied. Every break the two found a way to stand close, looking content as they absorbed each other’s company. Oikawa couldn't say much about Akaashi, who had a face that showed as much emotion as a brick wall (who would even like that? Clearly he had dodged a bullet since Iwa-chan had such bad taste), but he knew that being with Akaashi made Iwa-chan happy. There was something relaxed in Iwa-chan's stance when he stood next to his new soulmate.

Oikawa couldn’t help but note how different it was from when he stood next to Iwa-chan. It was clear Akaashi and Iwa-chan were congruent rather than complimentary soulmates. Rather than fitting into each other’s empty spaces, they overlapped and reinforced each other's strengths. Most soulmates were classified as congruent, so it shouldn't have surprised Oikawa, but… as clearly as Iwa-chan and Akaashi were congruent, Iwa-chan and Oikawa would have been complimentary. Their friendship was complimentary. It was explosive and quiet in turn, always filling in each other’s silences. But between Akaashi and Iwa-chan there was no noise. Akaashi didn’t bombard Iwa-chan with ‘trivial’ (excuse me, Iwa-chan, but all his questions were of utmost immediate importance, okay?) questions. Iwa-chan never rolled his eyes or threw volleyballs at Akaashi. 

… was that what Iwa-chan preferred? Had all Oikawa’s little quirks been annoyances that Iwa-chan put up with for the sake of their friendship? Oikawa had thought… well, Oikawa was good at reading people, double so for Iwa-chan. He had thought, maybe, that Iwa-chan had been secretly fond of all those things. That he had liked them. That they had entertained him.

Oikawa wished Iwa-chan would look more bored. 

He knew he wasn't being fair. This was Iwa-chan's soulmate. What kind of person could he be that he wanted to make his best friend stop talking to their soulmate? What kind of person would want them to have a disagreement, or to be awkward around each other, or to show any obvious signs of their incompatibility? What kind of person would look for anything that would make Iwa-chan decide that the universe had made a mistake and Akaashi Keiji wasn't actually the one for him?

A person a lot like Oikawa, apparently.

It didn't matter, though, because there was nothing. They got along great, from what Oikawa could tell from his spot watching their backs in the stands. He tightened his arms against his legs where he had bunched them up on the seat. It hurt, but it wasn't like he could go down there and demand Iwa-chan stop speaking with his soulmate. Even Oikawa could recognize, through the hurt throbbing in his chest, that it would be a terrible thing to do; and despite what Iwa-chan thought, he wasn’t that shitty of a person… or at the very least, not that shitty of a friend… not to Iwa-chan.

After a somehow much shorter and a much longer amount of time than Oikawa felt like it had been, practice ended. He shuffled his way outside to meet up again with Iwa-chan as he exited the locker room. As he walked down the steps, Oikawa practiced contorting his face into a perfect relaxed smile. He was determined not to let Akaashi Keiji see him at anything less than one-hundred percent. The least he could do was milk some jealousy out of that stoic face. Being taken as a threat might make Oikawa feel better.

"Oh, Iwa-chan!" he called as he saddled over to his friend's side, interrupting his conversation with Akaashi as they walked out... together. Iwa-chan rolled his eyes. Even though Oikawa knew it was playful (or did he?), it still caused something painful in his chest.

"Akaashi, you remember Oikawa, from yesterday,"

Akaashi nodded, his stoic expression not even bothering to twitch at the arm Oikawa had thrown over Iwa-chan’s shoulder. Oikawa felt a different sort of fiery heat in his gut. He should have brought his contacts with him to change while Iwa-chan practiced. Oikawa had used the cute 'nerd chic' look to his advantage before, but for this, he would have preferred to dazzle with the force of a physical blow. (Would it even work against someone as comparably stunning as Akaashi Keiji, with his thick eyelashes and natural ‘come-hither’ expression? Would he look at Oikawa and see an equal?).

"It would be difficult to forget The Grand King."

Oikawa was momentarily thrown from his not-jealous plotting. He blinked at Akaashi. Iwa-chan chuckled with a smile, "You’ve meet Karasuno's number ten?"

Akaashi nodded.

"Our schools held training camps together in my second and third year. My... Bokuto-san, my ace, grew attached to Hinata-kun, number ten."

As if Oikawa needed more reason to dislike Akaashi. Akaashi's second year would have been Oikawa's last. Anyone who trained with Karasuno was no friend of his.

"Yes, well, Iwa-chan and I head home down this road so--"

"Uh, actually, Oikawa, Akaashi and I were going to get some coffee."

Oikawa stiffened. That pretty much settled it. That was it, it was starting. This was real. Iwa-chan had found his real soulmate and now Oikawa was destined to be forever second string in his best friend's life.

“Oh!” Oikawa put on his brightest smile. Iwa-chan frowned at him.

“You can come too,” he offered. It embarrassed Oikawa that his disappointment had been so obvious. Would Iwa-chan put two and two together? He hoped not. The only thing more pathetic than being in love with his soulmated best friend would be if said best friend knew about it. At least this way Oikawa could pretend to have some dignity left.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your date~” Oikawa winked and Iwa-chan scowled at him.

“It’s not a date, Shittykawa,”

“Iwaizumi-san is right. Please join us, Oikawa-san. I would like to get to know the both of you better,” Akaashi added.

The offer tempted Oikawa. If he was there, nothing could progress. It wasn’t below him-- as his involvement in Iwa-chan’s other attempts at relationships in high school proved-- but… this was his soulmate. Oikawa could convince himself that Iwa-chan's other relationships weren’t right for him (and that was the excuse he had given himself long before he recognized his own feelings). That wasn’t the case here. There would be no justification for ruining this for Iwa-chan (if he even could, he wasn’t that egotistical); no justification for inserting himself into a relationship that was never meant to be his.

“Oh, it’s okay, Aka-chan.” The displeasure that crossed Akaashi’s face from his new (permanent) nickname filled Oikawa with satisfaction.

“Please don’t call me--”

“--I have things to get done before I go back to school. Have fun!” He gave his flirtiest wink and wave and was less pleased when he saw displeasure cross Iwa-chan’s face. But that disapproval was nothing new. How could he have ever thought they were made for each other?

A few days later, Oikawa went to his own school on the other side of the district and expected that to be the end of things. He wondered how long it would be before contact with Iwa-chan went from every week to every month to teetering off altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love soulmate fics. And not even in a 'must subvert the trope!' sort of a way? Yet somehow this fic still happened?
> 
> I think the thing about it is I have a 'thing' about fictional soulmates. I ship some characters without seeing them necessarily as soulmates and visa-versa? Johnlock I can do with or without, but they're definitely soulmates. Kagehina is OTP and Kageyama and Hinata are soulmates, it's canon, Ukai literally says it ("how cruel"), don't @ me.  
> But Oikawa and Iwaizumi who I ship just as much? ... eh. I don't really see it? Like, the others fit together, no alteration required. Oikawa and Iwaizumi are too different. They only fit together as well as they do now because they welded themselves together in their developmental years and now the shape of the other person is etched into their bones and now they want to make something of that bond... but is that really any less special?
> 
> Sorry for oversharing unnecessarily strong opinions about theoretical 'soulmates'. This is, of course, all based just on my interpretation of the word and the characters in question. I'm not about the fight anyone who sees it differently (except on the Kageyama Hinata thing. i know i said don't @ me. but, also, _fite me_.)


	2. Attention Whore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With some help, Oikawa tries to unravel what he's willing to want from Iwa-chan now that Iwa-chan's found his soulmate.

“... got so shitfaced he thought Kaori-san was his mother for some reason. So me and Akaashi had to carry him home. He’s an even bigger lightweight than you,”

“Lies! I am not a lightweight!” Oikawa complained to his computer screen, bright with Iwa-chan’s slightly pixelated face. 

One month had passed, then two, and Oikawa’s confusion mounted with each passing day.

Nothing… nothing changed. Sure, Iwa-chan talked about Akaashi a ton-- Oikawa knew more than he ever wanted to about Akaashi and his single child rearing and his surprising appetite and his introverted qualities-- but the revolution didn't happen. Iwa-chan and Oikawa still video-chatted at least once a week. They texted all the time. The two of them still listened to each other’s problems and shared stories about their college lives. Nothing changed.

“Yes, you fucking are.” Oikawa stuck out his lower lip and crossed his arms. Iwaizumi sighed. “Oi, stop pouting. It’s the truth and you know it,”

“Hmp. It looks that way because my drinks aren’t wheat water with two-percent alcohol content,”

“No, they’re generally pink, have umbrellas in them, and were mooched off someone else.”

Oikawa stuck out his tongue. Iwaizumi rolled his eyes while his lips twitched. Oikawa once again wished they were together in person. He knew the computer screen failed to capture the warmth in Iwaizumi's smile as he looked at Oikawa.

Insanity drew closer to Oikawa with each passing day of this. He wished he at least knew if Akaashi and Iwa-chan-chan were officially dating yet. For all that Iwa-chan talked about Akaashi, he never mentioned anything like that. But it had been months, they must be together by now?

A noise echoed from one of the rooms down the hall as one of his roommates shuffled out of the bathroom. Oikawa shifted onto his knees to look for his earbuds. Iwaizumi watched him for a second.

“How’s your knee? You better not be overworking it, you asshole,”

“I’m not!” Oikawa snapped back to the screen. He must have left his earbuds in his backpack. 

"Uh-huh,”

“It’s true!... Sometimes I’m even home before midnight,”

“Oikawa!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking. Can’t you take a joke, Iwa-chan?”

“Shut up. You’re doing your stretches? And relaxing the muscle?”

“I’m taking care of it. You’re such a mom.” The only positive to Iwaizumi not physically being with Oikawa was that Oikawa could get away with stuff like that. 

“What?!”

Oikawa winked. And stuff like that. 

“It’s okay. I know Iwa-chan likes to freet about me. It’s because he cares.” He already knew Iwaizumi's reply to his teasing:

‘Ya right, Shittykawa’

“Ya, I do.” Iwaizumi's vibrant eyes looked straight into Oikawa. The screen dulled the unique interplay between gray, green, and brown that made up the iris. It failed to dull the piercing sincerity of the look. Iwaizumi's entire face softened into something Oikawa didn't know how to handle. That, combined with the suddenness of the confession, left Oikawa’s own face burning. He tried for a laugh.

“Ha, obviously~.” He busied his eyes with shifting his laptop back into a comfortable position, hyperaware of Iwaizumi’s gaze. 

“... listen, Oikawa--”

Maybe Iwaizumi hadn't said anything before now because he knew. Maybe he had figured out that Oikawa still felt the way they had in high school and was trying to spare him. The thought of it made Oikawa want to die of embarrassment. The mortification crept up his neck with the burning sensation. 

It didn't sound like something Iwaizumi would do. Iwaizumi had always been either blunt or easy to interpret past his angry facade. Still, the idea of Iwaizumi proving him right flooded Oikawa with panic.

Footsteps echoed down the hall and Oikawa ran with the excuse. 

“-- My roommate's coming and I can’t find my earbuds. Talk to you later, Iwa-chan?”

“What? Wait--” Oikawa ended the call and took a deep breath. Oikawa closed his laptop and flopped onto the couch as his roommate walked into the common area. 

“Everything’s just absolutely terrible, Yuuji-chan!” Yuuji-chan, the heartless traitor, rolled his eyes. Oikawa’s face buried in the couch cushions prevented him from seeing it, but he felt it for sure. “You’re so mean, Yuuji-chan! Making fun of my pain!”

“Oikkun, babe. He met his soulmate. I think you’re supposed to be happy for him.” Oikawa wrinkled his nose and peaked up.

“Don’t call me that.”

Terushima's unimpressed look conveyed how hypocritical he found Oikawa's request. Oikawa sighed and shifted his head so he was eyeing Terushima from above the cushion. 

His youngest roommate was using the living room mirror to examine his tongue-- pulling on it and everything-- like some sort of heathen.

“We have a bathroom, you know,” Oikawa said. Terushima nodded.

“The light over the sink is out,”

“What, since when?!”

“Ten minutes ago. You would have noticed if it was any earlier, after all,”

“Okay, first of all, don’t sit here and pretend you spend any less time in front of a mirror. Second of all, did you call maintenance?”

Terushima locked his eyes with Oikawa's through his reflection and then rolled them. He went back to shifting his bleached hair to one side to better frame its undercut. Oikawa flipped over onto his back, one arm hanging off the sofa, and groaned.

“Ugh, why did I agree to live with you?”

“Because I'm a good time.” Terushima winked. “Also, I listen to you go on about your boyfriend, so that's a plus!”

“Mean! Mean! You know he’s not my boyfriend! That’s the problem!”

“Ya, for bullshit reasons,”

“Bullshit reasons like him having a soulmate?”

“Yup,”

“What am I supposed to do? I’m not about to steal him away from his soulmate! Oikawa-san is no homewrecker!”

“And here I heard such fun things about you, too,”

“You are not helpful. Not helpful at all,”

“You want advice? ... Have you considered being a side-hoe?”

Oikawa shrieked, sat up, and threw his cushion at Terushima who had turned around to make his point. It hit him straight on. “How dare you! I am quality! I am not a side-hoe, I’m--”

“The main hoe?”

“Shut up!”

“Hey, don’t diss it. It’s my kind of gig.” Terushima walked over and sprawled next to Oikawa on the couch, ruffling through his bag.

“What? Seriously? With your soulmate? But don’t you want… I don’t know… something special? Something that can't be taken away, that’s… yours?”

Terushima wrinkled his nose.

“That’s my problem with it. If they’re ‘mine’ then I’m also ‘theirs.’ I hate the idea. Soulmate or not, I don’t belong to anyone,”

“It’s not literal like that,”

“I know, but… I wouldn’t want to be tied down like that, not just to one person… but to one… way of life, I guess?”

“But don’t you think your soulmate would compliment that? Someone as averse to settling down? You can change lifestyles together,”

“And she or he will always be there? Always together?” Terushima stuck out his tongue in disgust. “I don’t want that, Oikkun. I’d much rather my soulmate already had someone else so I wouldn't have to feel obligated to them. I’d love it if my soulmate and that ‘someone else’ didn’t mind if my soulmate and I had occasional sex. But even if they weren’t okay with it I’d still rather not be their one and only,”

“But you still want to meet them? I mean, you want to sleep with them? Why?”

Terushima shrugged.

“The connection, I guess. They’re supposed to be perfect for me, right? I’m not against a home base. Somewhere to go where someone would always be happy to see me. Maybe somewhere to go when I get...” There was something heavy about Terushima's pause, but he continued before Oikawa could say anything. “Nevermind. Also, getting a tongue piercing and some tattoos would be awesome!”

“Are you waiting for your soulmate’s permission?” Some people did that, but after what Terushima had said…

“Nope! What do you take me for? But….” Terushima found a pocket on the inside of his bag and took out what looked to be a very thick blue pen. He placed the part where the ballpoint would go against the pad of his pointer finger. Right before he clicked the top, Oikawa realized it wasn’t a pen. It was one of those needles like diabetic people used to prick their fingers. Terushima was not diabetic. 

“Wait--”

Terushima pressed down with a loud click.

“Yuuji-chan!”

“Haha, relax. Look.”

Oikawa looked. There was a slight red mark on the tip of Terushima’s finger now, but nothing else. He looked back up at Terushima’s annoyed eyes.

“Only my soulmate can draw blood. Or that’s what we’re guessing anyway…. Me and my doctor, that is. I mean, not being able to break skin is inconvenient for other reasons, but mostly the tongue ring. It’s really not cool! To be fair, there are advantages, too.” He slid the needle back onto his backpack. Oikawa could only guess he carried it around for this exact purpose. Oikawa wondered how many people he had tested it on.

“So you want to meet your soulmate so you can get a tongue piercing. And you want them to already be in a relationship so they won’t expect too much of you?”

“Pretty much. I guess they wouldn’t have to be if they’re like me about it, but we still wouldn’t be together. That’s my ideal soulmate.”

Oikawa took a moment to absorb all that.

“That… that sounds… lonely,”

Terushima laughed, “You know, for someone who has so many friends, you sure think a lot of things are lonely! I’d have other friends, and I’d talk to them all the time! I could just never be with one person for that long all at once.” His eyes dug into Oikawa with a question in them. When he finally spoke it, it wasn't what Oikawa had expected. “Do you have plans for tonight? Come with me to a house party! Get laid, cut the umbilical cord with your Iwa-chan!” He popped up from the sofa and grabbed Oikawa’s wrists, dragging Oikawa's body foot above the couch with no input from Oikawa's limbs.

“I don’t know…” Oikawa whined, lolling his head backward, “I don’t really like house parties...”

“I know they can be lame sometimes, but this one will be fun, promise! Good booze,”

“We’re too young,”

“Oh my god. You can’t be more than a few months away.” Three to be exact.

“And you must be more than a year,”

“Less than, actually. April birthday. But man, no one would guess you’re such a goodie-two-shoes. And with your reputation…” Terushima pouted.

“Yuuji-chaaaaaan… Oph! Owwwww!” Oikawa groaned as Terushima let go of his wrists and he fell backward onto the couch. “Meeeeeeeaan,” he slumped to the side, rolling onto his stomach.

“I’m leaving. Be ready for the party by ten thirty… eleven... eleven thirty. Make it eleven thirty,”

Oikawa sighed and shifted on the couch. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Terushima’s eyes sweep up and down his form. It lied stretched to its advantage over the cushions with his shirt pulled up his back and sweatpants low on his hips. Oikawa smirked to himself as Terushima licked his lip.

“God, you’re so hot... too bad you’re so high-maintenance,”

“Hey!” Oikawa sat up and crossed his arms, “There’s nothing wrong with taking good care of yourself! It’s no business of yours, I’ll have you know,”

“I spent ten minutes I needed to get to class taking your mind off two relationships that don’t even exist,”

“Two?!”

“You and your Iwa-chan, and your Iwa-chan and his soulmate,”

“I’m sensitive!”

“You’re a main hoe. You admitted to it. I don’t have time for that sort of commitment,”

“Well excuse me, it wasn’t like I was propositioning you!” He looked away with a huff.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t lie that way on purpose.” Oikawa blushed.

“I’ve got it. You’re not a side hoe or a main hoe. You, Oikawa Tooru, are an attention whore," Terushima laughed, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he opened the front door.

“Yuuji-chan!” Oikawa pouted harder. The laugh continued as the door shut. Oikawa groaned and laid back down.

A house party, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terushima came this close to being Suga. I couldn't decide which, so i wrote a name to get a feel for it for a few sentences and ended up writing three pages and sticking with it. XD I love Suga/Oikawa friendship, but it being Terushima ended up becoming plot relevant.


	3. Getting Over It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terushima doesn't give good advice. Oikawa knows this... really, he does, he promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief trigger warning. See end notes.

To be clear, Oikawa didn't have 'bad ideas.' Once or twice he had 'less than optimal' ones, is all. Going to the party? Less than optimal idea.

He should have known. He had only meet Terushima at the beginning of the term and he already knew better than to trust his judgment... or he thought he did, anyway. The guy made everything into a party. Terushima didn’t understand how drinks and free rooms (and maybe some bongs, as a bonus) could fail to entertain anyone. Remembering that made it easy for Oikawa to place the blame for the detachment he felt from the loud music and the lively atmosphere on Terushima's conscience instead of his own. He ignored that every time he tried to flirt he lost the rhythm of the conversation, that even normal conversation and some light dancing made him feel like a draining battery.

Oikawa talked and he laughed and he drank, but still found himself wrangling an empty barstool near the kitchen countertop and parking himself there for the rest of the night.

On the barstool next to him, a couple sat one on the other's lap. The soft pink light pulsing from underneath their skin, framed by the sweetheart necklines of their blouses, announced their soulmate bond to the world.

Oikawa sniffed and looked away. Show-offs. He took another sip of his drink. Terushima had been right about there being alcohol, but the modifier of ‘good’ was debatable. Oikawa wasn't sure it even qualified as consumable (he wasn’t even certain it wasn’t lighter fluid)-- he knocked back the rest of the cup. 

Going home sounded best about now, but he couldn’t leave Terushima, and Terushima had… disappeared a little while back. Going looking didn’t sound like a good time.

Out of the corner of his eye, Oikawa could see the soulmates sucking face. He happened to _casually_ (super _duper casually _) notice that their skin tones matched those of him and Iwa-chan. Then he realized he had thought that and hated that he had. He looked again.__

Despite the enthusiasm of their making-out, the smaller woman with the light copper undertoned makore skin-tone (he spent a lot of time thinking up words to describe Iwa-chan, sue him) ran a gentle hand through the hair of the porcelain-skinned (he had a delicate composure, okay?!) woman whose lap she was sitting on. There the similarities ended, but Oikawa couldn’t help but imagine it. What if he and Iwa-chan’s little hearts had started to glow when they first touched as infants? It would be perfect for them. Linked from birth... ( he worked to ignore the part of him repelled by the idea, that knew he wouldn't have stood for forces unknown laying out his life for him). Oikawa sighed and rested his head on his crossed arms.

Now that Iwa-chan had bonded, though, Oikawa wondered with more thought put into it than ever what his own mark looked like. Would his heart start glowing when he met his so-called soulmate? He couldn’t imagine something so intimate with someone he couldn’t imagine being in love with, or at least not loving them as much as he was capable. And not to diminish Iwa-chan’s happily-ever-after, but Oikawa had always found words-- the most common indicator-- to be a bit boring. It couldn’t be any sort of timer or colorblindness, and he had never noticed injuries or writings on his skin that weren’t his own. They could have a shared language only they could speak... 

What did it matter, though? It wasn’t Iwa-chan. It wasn’t Iwa-chan. 

It wasn’t Iwa-chan… 

_“It's not fair, Iwa-chan! We could have done it this year, we could have...” Oikawa hit his hands against Iwa-chan's shoulders as his breath hitched. The weak clap, in his drained state, managed to get Iwa-chan's legs to give. Oikawa's weight shifting forward as he bowed his head didn't help, and they soon found themselves kneeling on the floor of Oikawa's bedroom, centimeters shy of slotting their knees between each other's._

_"I know." Iwa-chan's hands grabbed at the sleeves of Oikawa's Aoba Johsai jacket. "I fucking know." His red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks betrayed the truth behind his angry tone. The bite mark on his lower lip from his own teeth betrayed the intensity of the feeling. Oikawa hated seeing that look on Iwa-chan's face. He sniffled. Their breaths sounded loud in the quiet room. They hadn't bothered to turn on the lights when they stumbled in, and the darkness helped sooth Oikawa's sensitive nerves._

_"... I don't care who wins tomorrow. I'm going to hate them both," he grumbled after a few minutes._

_“I know that too, crappy guy.” Iwa-chan got out with a strained laugh. Oikawa's mouth managed one of his exaggerated pouts, and Iwa-chan's eyes flickered down to it. They didn't leave it. Oikawa shivered all over, his pulse beating in his lips._

_“Name calling's not a good way to set the mood, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said before he realized it._

_“Mood? What mood?!” Iwa-chan jerked backward but didn’t shift his knees at all, choosing only to sit back on his ankles. Oikawa’s cheeks warmed. He hoped the blush wasn’t noticeable past the natural irritated patchy red caused by tears... not that he ugly cried. He was too pretty for that._

_“Don't you know a joke when you hear one?”_

_“Do… do you want there to be a mood?”_

_Oikawa froze. Was it him, or did that sound… hopeful? He roved his eyes over every dip of Iwa-chan’s face. He thought Iwa-chan shivered under his gaze. Oikawa swallowed and leaned forward. Iwa-chan’s eyes widened, but then he relaxed and let their foreheads rest against each other. Oikawa didn’t think he would ever forget the way Iwa-chan looked at him in that moment: open, vulnerable, and filled with affection._

_Before either of them knew it, Oikawa’s hands were on Iwa-chan’s cheeks and Iwa-chan’s hands, rough and blunt, were on Oikawa’s cheeks. They used their new grips to tilt each other's heads upwards. Oikawa could feel Iwa-chan’s, Hajime’s, shallow breaths puff warm against his own lips. Oikawa lowered his eyelids, listening to the rhythm of their intermingling breaths and feeling the soft warmth of Hajime’s hands and forehead against his skin._

_“Even though we’re... we're not soulmates?” The words were whispered so low that Oikawa couldn't tell if he heard them so much as he felt them breathed against his face._

_Oikawa almost scoffed. Not soulmates._

_Maybe not. Maybe they weren’t soulmates according to the universe or whatever, but so what?_

_“I--” The words caught in Oikawa’s throat. His mother's voice, recalling breaking up with her then-boyfriend in favor of her soulmate, echoed in his head._ 'Don't put obstacles in the way of your soulmate, Tooru-chan.' _Her voice told him night after night as he settled into bed._

_Oikawa felt, at that moment, more familiar with 'obstacles' than he ever wanted to be. More and more he found himself confronted with and observing hurdles of the universe's making. People like Ushiwaka and Tobio who were born with the ability to surpass Oikawa’s hardest work, no matter how much Oikawa wanted to stay on the court._

_Oikawa wanted Hajime. He believed he and Hajime both had the spirit and compatibility to be happy together._

_But..._

_If this last game-- and the year before that and the year before that-- had proven anything, it was that sometimes that wasn’t enough. Sometimes you could want something with your entire being and work yourself into the ground to get it, and it could still slip right through your fingers. Sometimes… sometimes dedication wasn’t enough._

_Sometimes the universe created geniuses. Sometimes it created the person who would be perfect for your best friend in a way you never could be, regardless of how hard Oikawa would work to be the person best for Hajime._

_Hadn’t Oikawa learned anything? It didn’t matter how hard he worked. It never mattered how hard he worked. He couldn't be enough, not for nationals, not for his team, and maybe… probably not for Hajime._

_He wouldn’t be able to bare it if Hajime was taken away from him after he had him._

_“I…” He looked into Hajime's sharp hazel eyes, dark grey and vulnerable in the low light. The silence built. As Oikawa watched, speechless, hard gray walls went up in those eyes. Finally, after silence enough to say the answer clear as any words could, Hajime looked away. He dropped Oikawa’s cheeks and Oikawa did the same. They shuffled back away from each other._

_“Oh,”_

_“Ha-- Iwa-chan. I just… I want…”_

_“No, it’s okay. You want your soulmate. I understand.” Oikawa tried to find the words to explain, to make it clear that he didn’t want this separation to be forever. That he didn’t want his soulmate. He wanted Iwa-chan, and he wanted him forever. “No, actually, I lied,” Iwa-chan spat like a knife before Oikawa could speak. “T.V and movies and those things tell me I’m supposed to understand but… I don’t. I… I don’t understand, Oikawa. Would you really rather wait for someone you’ve never met and don’t know anything about than… ?”_

_“And what happens after the waiting is over, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa challenged. Iwa-chan always did have a problem with thinking things through, that had always been Oikawa’s job._

_“Whatever it is, why would it stop us from being together?”_

_“It’s your soulmate. How could they not?”_

_“Why? Fate? Destiny? You don’t believe in those things. I know you don't, not with all the work you put into beating ‘naturally talented’ geniuses,”_

_“That’s different,”_

_“How? You’ve always believed in yourself above any of that ‘meant to be’ bullshit, so how is this, how are soulmates, any different?”_

_Iwa-chan was right, of course. Oikawa didn’t believe in fate or destiny. He believed in wanting things and working nonstop to get them and never letting anyone tell you no. But, clearly, his beliefs didn't matter._

_He couldn’t explain it, not to Iwa-chan. It wasn’t that it was his heart. He put his heart into volleyball. But volleyball couldn’t leave. No matter how many games he lost, volleyball couldn’t be taken away from him (his knee twinged, but Oikawa dutifully ignored it). Iwa-chan could be taken away. Iwa-chan could leave._

_And Iwa-chan… between the two of them, it was always Iwa-chan who wasn’t one-hundred percent sure of what he wanted. Once Oikawa chose something he committed to it with everything he had. Iwa-chan didn’t change his mind often, true, but not because he committed, but because he settled. What if he settled for Oikawa? What if his soulmate came along and he realized he wanted something different? What if he realized Oikawa wasn’t enough?_

_“It just is,” Oikawa looked at the floor._

_“How? Why wait for something that may not be what you want or expect? Why not live in the here and now?”_

_“It’s always the here and now with you, Iwa-chan.” He didn’t know why he said what he said next, it was true about Iwa-chan, but only with things and hobbies, not about people. Iwa-chan’s loyalty was never a question. Not the way Oikawa made it sound. But maybe he believed it a bit. Maybe he believed that if they did this now, and then Iwa-chan found his soulmate later, he would always regret it. “That’s the problem. You can never commit.”_

_The room fell into silence once again, this time harsh, angry, even._

_Fabric rustled, Iwa-chan’s breath moved from in front of him to above him. Footsteps marched over to Oikawa’s bed and Oikawa heard a bag being thrown over a shoulder followed by the door creaking open._

_A distinct awareness that this was it permeated the heavy air. One of them would either say something, or they would never bring this moment, this opportunity, up again. What would they even say? Oikawa wanted a level of commitment Iwa-chan couldn't offer, that no one (only one person) could offer. He knew that, but he couldn't find the mental space to take a risk on anything less._

_The door stayed open for at least thirty seconds. A deep inhale came from that direction. Expectancy aired around the room, the silence before noise. Instead of releasing, the breath cut off. The room stayed silent._

_The door clicked shut._

_Oikawa was alone._

“Oikkun? Oikawa!” Oikawa lifted his heavy head from the warm cradle of his arms, blinking sleep and memories out of his eyes. His numb forearms propped up his sweaty cheek. When had that happened? “Geez, I can’t believe you fell asleep like an old man.” 

His fingers were unwound from something and he realized it was the cup they had still been curled around. He squinted. In the dim light, he could see Terushima bring the drink up to his nose to sniff. He put his finger in and licked it, popping his lips twice. 

“Doesn’t seem like you’ve been drugged. You’re pretty, you know, gotta be sure,” 

Oikawa frowned and blinked a few more times as the world came into focus again. Terushima’s words solidified and gained context enough to make sense. 

“That… that’s not funny, Terushima.” Terushima blinked at him twice and a little furrow appeared between his eyebrows. 

“Right. Right, sorry.” He put the cup back down and cracked his knuckles one by one. For a second he rocked back on his heels and looked everywhere but Oikawa. Then he breathed and caught Oikawa's attention again, not looking away this time. Instead, he burrowed into Oikawa's eyes, searching out something. “Are you okay, really?” His eyes darted to the cup again. 

Oh, Oikawa understood now. The edge of his lips angled upward and his gaze softened as he looked up at Terushima. It was strange having a friend who hid his worry with (bad and inappropriate) humor. He couldn't help but contrast it to Iwa-chan, who used transparent anger, or even Makki and Mattsun who were blunt or dryly sarcastic in turn. 

“Yes, I’m fine~. I was resting. Naturally,” He looked towards the barstool. The soulmates had disappeared, but they could have moved to another part of the house. The crowd hadn't dissipated, but instead of dancing people sat around drinking and slurring half words to each other. He looked back to Terushima. “What happened to your nose?” 

The newly reddened skin across the bridge of it seemed to be darkening by the second. Oikawa offhand noticed that this meant Terushima could still bruise. Terushima laughed. 

“Let’s say things went a bit south, not fun.” His hand came up to shift his hair to one side. Oikawa followed the motion and realized Terushima had a long line of still-red developing hickeys drawing up his neck to the back of his ear. “All good, though. At least they couldn’t give me a nose bleed!” 

“Does that really count as breaking skin?” Oikawa asked offhand while shambling out of his seat. 

“Never had one before, so I guess! But seriously--” he looked back to a hallway leading to another part of the house, “we should go… now.” Terushima pushed Oikawa forward. Oikawa couldn’t help but laugh a little and in doing so realized he couldn’t have been asleep that long. He still felt a bit detached from reality in a way only alcohol could achieve. 

“What time is it anyway?” 

“Ummm.” Terushima pulled his phone halfway out of his pocket and checked the screen. “Two-thirty four,” 

“Ugh, why did I let you talk me into this?” 

“Because--” 

“Right, right. Because you’re a good time~ I don’t think ‘they’ would agree.” He winked and Terushima stuck out his tongue. 

“Ya, ya. Seriously. Let’s go.” The two of them supported their not inconsiderable weights on each other as they stumbled out of the small house. Terushima hummed some unpredictable tune to himself as they walked. The humid wrapped around Oikawa and he breathed it in with satisfaction. It helped him bat away that memory of him and Iwa-chan in their last year together. Looking back, so many things he could have done or said differently jumped out at him. Still, nothing had been untrue. Nothing changed the fact that they weren't soulmates or that Iwa-chan would be better off with someone who matched him better. 

Lost in thought, Oikawa didn't realize they had made it to the stairs of their building until Terushima's wandering hand caught his attention. It slipped down from Oikawa’s shoulder to fiddling with the waistband of Oikawa’s jeans. It could have been a drowsy accident, but when Oikawa looked down at Terushima, Terushima was looking back up at him with a suggestive ‘what-about-it?’ sort of toothy smile. Oikawa laughed under his breath. 

“I thought I was too high maintenance for Yuuji-chan~” 

“Eh, standards lower when you’re drunk,” 

“Wow. I’m swooning, Yuuji-chan. I’ve been seduced!" He mimed swooning for show. 

“So, is that a yes, or…” A few fingers slipped under Oikawa's waistband and a pleasant shiver glided low on Oikawa's hips. After a moment, though, Oikawa laughed again and ran his hand over the skin of Terushima's wandering wrist. Oikawa held the joint in place for a moment before shifting it back up to safer territory. 

“I’m afraid not,” he decided. 

Contrary to popular belief (thanks a lot, Makki and Mattsun) Oikawa didn't actually throw himself at anything that moved. The opposite, to be honest. He had only ever had two girlfriends, all the way back in his first and second years of high school. He had never slept with anyone. If he wanted to be poetic about it, he was ‘saving himself’ for someone specific. If he wanted to be practical about it, high school, and especially third year, had been an emotional rollercoaster between him and Iwa-chan. By the time it finished and they had their confrontation, Oikawa knew he wouldn't be able to summon the interest to be serious with someone else. 

Anyone else would feel like they were there to fill the space while Oikawa waited for the ball to drop: either he and Iwa-chan would be soulmates or Iwa-chan would find his soulmate in someone else. To date while waiting for someone else would feel like a betrayal on all sides. It wouldn’t have been fair to Iwa-chan, to himself, or to his date. 

All that to say, Oikawa didn’t have much, or any, experience, and even less than that with a man (he had at least made out with his girlfriends). He had never considered dating one outside of Iwa-chan… but Terushima was handsome enough, in a fun trickster sort of a way… At least, he had a confidence to him that attracted Oikawa. More than that, if Oikawa had been ‘saving himself’ for Hajime before, what exactly was he doing now? What was the point? What was he waiting for? 

_'Get laid, cut the umbilical cord with your Iwa-chan!'_

Maybe that was better advice than Oikawa had given it credit for. 

So when Terushima said, “Are you sure?” 

Oikawa said, “Convince me,” 

And as a result, a half-naked Oikawa found himself hovering over Terushima and admitting to being a virgin. 

“You’re kidding.” 

Oikawa looked away. He would have blushed, but he was already too flushed from the kissing and groping as it was. 

“Holy shit.” Terushima’s head dropped back into the pillows. “I didn’t sign up for… We’re friends, but I’m not looking for something special, Oikawa,” 

“I know,” Oikawa replied, half affronted that Terushima seemed to think he couldn’t do casual, even if it was his first time. 

“And you want this?” 

“Yes,” 

“Are you sure?” Even though the question was the same as the one Terushima had asked in the hall, he altered his tone to the point it sounded like the complete opposite. For all that could be said about Terushima, it was doubtless that he cared, and with a greater depth than Oikawa thought Terushima knew how to deal with. 

So Oikawa kissed him, wet and dirty and the complete opposite of ‘special.' Terushima groaned and let Oikawa settle between his legs, one hand embarking on an uncoordinated search for the drawer of his side table. Terushima banged it open and managed to extract a medium sized white tube and a packet of wrappers. 

“Damn. And I was going to try to convince you to bottom.” Terushima shook his head and looked at a wide-eyed Oikawa while holding up his prizes and spreading his own legs further apart. “So, I’m assuming you know how these work?” 

The next morning, Oikawa woke up in Yuuji’s bed and tried not to let his memories mortify him as he collected his clothes and slipped back into his own room. 

Alone in his room, Oikawa asked himself if he would have done it if he had had nothing to drink last night. Yes? He hadn’t been drunk so much as lightheaded. Did that make it a good decision? He didn't know. Did he regret it?… No… Maybe? Nothing about it had been bad. Plus, while he still thought he was more attracted to women, this proved Iwa-chan wasn’t some sort of end-all-be-all exception. Maybe the ‘umbilical cord’ (it wasn’t an umbilical cord, thank you, it was something with a bit more equal footing, just a tether or a cable) wasn’t entirely severed, but it didn’t feel like it was tugging quite so hard... that or the tugs had transformed from periodical reminders to a subtle but unyielding pull. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Brief reference to date rape/date rape drugs in a 'joking' manner. Spoilers Ahead.
> 
> PSA: Don't sleep with your platonic roommate. It's a bad idea. just... just an awful idea. Oikawa (and Terushima) is an idiot.
> 
> Anyway, This chapter was formatting hell for me ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> What do you think? I'd love it if you let me know.


	4. Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Oikawa and Iwaizumi refuse to play this game any longer... Except they may be thinking about different games. Still, Iwa-chan wouldn't have done that if it Oikawa didn't have a chance, right?

Two months after Oikawa slept with Yuuji for the first (and last) time, classes let off for a long weekend due to a federal holiday. In one of his and Iwa-chan's usual facetime conversations, Oikawa made a decision. He couldn’t live this unsustainable are-they/aren’t-they state of being for much longer. He needed to do something. 

“Does Iwa-chan have any plans for the break?”

“No…" Iwa-chan tilted out of the screen to grab a drink, "...kind of. Why?” Perfect.

“Because I’m coming over! To visit,”

“What?" he pulled the water bottle away from his mouth, "Don’t invite yourself places, Shittykawa!”

“You said you don’t have any plans! Not surprising, what would Iwa-chan do without me?” He put his hand to his heart.

“... I’m hanging up,”

“Iwa-chaaan, I’m sorry. I’m sure you have a very deep and interesting social life,” Oikawa lied.

“For your information, a friend of Akaashi’s is coming over this weekend.” Even more perfect. Akaashi would be busy and Oikawa could have Iwaizumi all to himself to figure things out.

“So you’re free!”

“No, I am not, asshole. We’re all getting together,”

“Ugh, why?”

“I’m his best friend’s soulmate. You tell me.” 

Oikawa sighed. Then he groaned. Then he slumped to the side out of the view of the camera, lying on his living room couch. A distorted sigh fell through Oikawa's headphones.

“Fine, whatever. It’d be cool to have you there. You’re my best friend, Akaashi should get to know you better.” Something in Oikawa unwound a bit at the continued use of Akaashi Keiji’s family name rather than his given one. “And I guess Bokuto wouldn’t complain,”

Oikawa perked up.

“Bokuto? Top six university ace in the nation Bokuto?”

Sure, nowadays Oikawa knew-- had set for-- better. He even played on a team with the second-best university ace. But every spiker was different, even the best ones. He had watched a few of Bokuto’s matches and found he ace’s almost erratic play style intriguing. He didn’t seem like someone who thought too much about what he did, often slamming the ball like some sort of preppy version of Mad Dog-chan. Yet he pulled off wipes and rebounds and cut-shots with an almost six sense for how to best avoid enemy blockers. He would love the opportunity to set a few balls for such an interesting spiker. 

“That’s him,”

“Now I have to go, Iwa-chan! It’s for the love of volleyball! You should round up enough people for a game!” Iwa-chan rolled his eyes. Oikawa shuffled onto his knees to better make his point when Yuuji’s head ducked in from around the corner.

“Are you getting together a volleyball game outside the team? Count me in! I haven’t played in forever!”

This time Oikawa rolled his eyes.

“It’s over the long weekend at a school two hours away,”

“I don’t have any plans,”

“Yuuji-cha--”

“Is that one of your roommates?” Iwa-chan cut in over the chat.

“Yes, the most annoying one,” Oikawa replied while making direct eye contact with Yuuji. Despite hearing only Oikawa's side of the conversation, he smirked.

“Oh, good, you have a lot in common." Rude!

“-- Iwa-chan! Mean, Mean, Iwa-ch--”

“If he’s serious he should come. Bokuto’s bringing a friend of his too, so if you bring someone that’s enough for a three-on-three. And I still have that empty room. Are you close? You two could share it, or if not he could share with Bokuto’s friend,”

As hard as he tried, Oikawa couldn’t dispel the blush he knew rose in his features from the question thrown in there. Instead of addressing it, he turned to Yuuji. He should have been even harder to face, but Yuuji had been so casual about the whole thing that it made Oikawa calmer about it in turn. Even the morning after, he only complained that ‘Tooru-chan’ hadn’t even made him breakfast like a proper lover, to which Oikawa had managed to get out that they weren’t proper lovers, to which Yuuji laughed, agreed, and let the subject drop.

“Against my much better judgment and wise advice, Iwa-chan says you can come, Yuuji-chan,”

“Awesome!” Yuuji turned his attention to the laptop on Oikawa’s lap. “See you there, Iwa-chan-san!” he shouted before disappearing back into his room.

“Did he call me Iwa-chan? What the fuck, Oikawa? Stop teaching people your bad habits,”

“What!? Why would you think that’s my fault!? And how is that a bad habit!? Mean! Mean!”

…:::*:::...

A few days later, Oikawa and Yuuji arrived on Iwa-chan’s campus with their bags slung over their shoulders and the noon sun looming overhead.

“Nice joint.” Yuuji leaned forward with his hands in his pockets as he followed Oikawa to Iwa-chan’s student housing. As they climbed the stairs, Yuuji’s eyes darted to Oikawa. “So… are you going to confess? Did you bring your rose calligraphy paper?”

“Yuuji-chan, you are not cute.” He meant for it to come out airy and playful and completely not bitter and forced…. Yuuji’s look gave him a pretty good idea of which happened. Yuuji soldiered on, though.

“So you’ve been considering the side hoe thing, then.” They made it up to the third-floor landing.

“Whatever you think you’re doing or trying to goad me for, it’s not working. It's actually kind of pathetic.” Oikawa dropped the attempt at bubbliness. He found it more difficult to keep it up with Yuuji these days. He put deliberate effort into not thinking about why that was.

Yuuji shrugged, lifting his palms.

“I don’t do subtle. You should confess. There’s no way you can be that close to someone for that long and in love with them and not have it get out one day. Better to make it on your own time. And no time like the present, yadda yadda,”

Oikawa stopped them at the mid-way point of the hall. He could see Iwa-chan’s door at the end and he wanted to make sure they wouldn't be overheard.

“You want to do this now, Yuuji-chan? We literally had a whole train ride together,”

“Maybe I was hoping to surprise you into doing it,”

“You underestimate me. For both things. I am excellent at keeping secrets.” He waved a hand in the air, trying to get back into his cheerful bubbliness.

“Even from your best friend?” Yuuji waggled his eyebrows.

“I can’t believe you’re bringing this up now. You know I don’t remember asking--”

“Oikawa-san?” Oikawa turned to find none other than Akaashi Keiji reaching the top of the stairs. His blue t-shirt two sizes too big and tucked into mom jeans didn't stop him from looking like he had stepped off of some photoshoot. Maybe for the rumpled-chic look. Not fair. Oikawa's natural charms stretched far, of course, but he also spent a fair amount of effort keeping his skin smooth and his hair soft and his closet up to date. He could already tell Akaashi did none of that (his hair didn’t even look brushed).

Iwa-chan did always complain about how long Oikawa’s beauty routine took. Looked like he didn’t have to worry about that with Akaashi-- all the pros and none of the cons. Iwa-chan and Akaashi were just made for each other, weren’t they?

“Aka-chan! How are you? What are you doing out here?”

“Good, thank you.” He lifted his hand, holding long pieces of bulky black cloth that Oikawa recognized as long knee pads. “Bokuto ‘forgot’ his knee pads in my dormitory. I was retrieving them.” The clear amusement in the explanation made the corners of his mouth twitch.

“Forgot?” He made the air quotations that Akaashi had implied.

“Hmm. An attempt to get me out of the house so that he could give Iwaizumi some strange version of a shovel talk, no doubt,”

“How nice of him.” It wasn’t nice. Had Akaashi told Bokuto something that Iwa-chan hadn’t told Oikawa?

“That’s one way to put it. Bokuto can be… over-enthusiastic. I’m certain any threat he tried to convey has devolved into spiking strategies and a promise of lifelong friendship,”

“When a man like you is on the line? I doubt it.” Yuuji chose that moment to butt into the conversation with a flirty wink. Akaashi responded to the comment with a deadpan stare so incredible and expressive in its blankness that Oikawa almost admired it.

“Iwaizumi said you were bringing a friend.” He turned back to Oikawa without acknowledging Yuuji any further, and if he were in any other company Oikawa would laugh and tease Yuuji about how relentlessly he had been rejected. Of course, such was to be expected when you hit on somebody that you knew had a soulmate. Idiot.

“Aka-chan, this is Yuuji-chan. Yuuji-chan, Aka-chan,” he gestured. It pleased him to see Akaashi’s mouth twitch in a bit of displeasure at the useless and a bit rude introductions. Though Oikawa noticed Akaashi had given up on trying to get Oikawa to call him anything different. He couldn't let him build up an immunity. Oikawa should find an excuse to move on to ‘Keiji-chan.’ 

“Akaashi,” Akaashi nodded at Yuuji. “Nice to meet you,”

“And I’m Terushima Yuuji. It’s very nice to meet you,”

“Hmmm. Thank you, Terushima-kun,”

“Just Terushima, please… Or Yuuji, if you want, babe,”

“Terushima.” Akaashi acknowledged before turning back to Oikawa. “I am sure Bokuto has had enough time by now. Please come inside.” Akaashi turned and led them down the hall. He knocked once on the door and opened it without awaiting a reply.

“I found your knee pads, Bokuto. And I also found Oikawa-san and his friend outside,” Akaashi announced while they all exchanged their shoes for slippers. 

A white-haired head popped up from the couch, the attached body kneeling backward to face them. Bokuto Koutarou looked about the same as he did in videos of his games, though Oikawa guessed this was what that disaster of a hairstyle looked like before all the jumping and running and sweating. It… wasn’t that much less of a disaster. And the brighter shade of white made Oikawa guess it had been re-dyed within the past month. Still, when Bokuto put his hands on the back of the sofa so he could lift himself over it, no one could deny those arms belonged to a powerful spiker. Oikawa’s fingers twitched with anticipation.

Then another face appeared beside Bokuto at a lower level. He dyed his hair inverted to how Mad Dog used to wear his, with blond racing stripes along the side of dark hair. A golden blond tuft in the front drew attention to the spiked up style. It took a moment, but Oikawa recognized the boy (man, he supposed, but he looked so young).

“You’re Karasuno’s libero!” He near accused. 

“Karasuno?” Yuuji repeated behind him.

“Play nice, Crappykawa,” another voice spoke up from further into the house before the libero could say anything in his defense. Iwa-chan appeared from the arch of the kitchen on the left, carrying a few water bottles in one arm. The warmth of Iwa-chan’s company burst through Oikawa at a rate that surprised even himself. Something about the light in Iwa-chan’s eyes couldn’t be captured by a computer screen.

“Wow, Iwa-chan. I haven’t been here for a whole minute and you’re already being rude and very inaccurate. What a terrible host,” Oikawa managed past the pound of his heart.

“You want terrible?” A water bottle came sailing at Oikawa’s head, and he ducked out of the way with a squeal and hands over his hair. “Mean, Iwa-chan!”

Iwa-chan snorted and put the bottles on the coffee table.

“It’s good to see you, Crapykawa,”

“That sentence and that name don’t go together at all!” 

Iwa-chan laughed with a little less restraint, and Oikawa watched the way his throat moved with it, the way his strong jaw parted as his lips opened half-way over a shining white smile-- no worse off for its rarity-- for a flash of a moment, the way his almost button nose scrunched up just so, and the way the movement of his cheeks pushed his sharp intelligent eyes up into half-crescents. Oikawa even found the lift of his straight eyebrows inexplicably cute. Was it any wonder all their kohai had had crushes on Iwa-chan (despite Oikawa’s best efforts to steal the attention)? Oikawa couldn’t help but laugh a little with him, even when Iwa-chan came up and gave Oikawa a pat on the shoulder that felt like more of a beating. Old habits, Oikawa supposed.

“I missed you too, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said. Unlike Iwa-chan, though, Oikawa accompanied his words with a draping hug from behind because he was a good friend. Behind them, Yuuji and Akaashi went to join the duo on the sofa, Bokuto already squawking something at Akaashi. 

With their heads pressed together, Oikawa could feel the rough thickness that characterized Iwa-chan’s hair, corse against the sensitive skin of Oikawa’s cheeks. It smelled like Iwa-chan’s cheap evergreen soap, which he used instead of shampoo, like some sort of heathen. Oikawa smiled.

“Oi! Get off me,” Iwa-chan demanded as he dragged them down a small hallway into one of the four rooms, each with key cards above the handle. The one he choose stood open, with bland gray bed sheets, stray weights and volleyballs, and shelf of more books than were probably strictly needed for classes (all non-fiction, of course, because Iwa-chan was actually a totally lame nerd/geek hybrid… Godzilla figurine sitting next to the books taken _way_ into account).

Oikawa let his head drop lower, to nestle between Iwa-chan’s jaw and shoulders. Iwa-chan’s neck felt fiery hot against the skin of Oikawa’s forehead; running hot to Oikawa’s cold. Oikawa let out a breath and felt Iwa-chan shiver against him from his shoulders and down his back.

“Stop that,” Iwa-chan grunted as he led them both to the small twin bed. He gave it his back and working on disengaging Oikawa’s fingers from where Oikawa intertwined them against Iwa-chan’s stomach. Oikawa tightened them and felt the solid surface of Iwa-chan’s abdomen against his palms for a moment before Iwa-chan managed to pry his fingers apart. Oikawa fell backward onto the sheets, pulling himself back to rest against the wall the bed was pushed against.

“How have you been?” Iwa-chan joined him, slotting their sides together from shoulder to thigh, probably purely out of habit.

“I talked to you less than a week ago. Is Iwa-chan worried?” Oikawa tilted his head to lay it on Iwa-chan’s shoulder. Iwa-chan sighed in the sort of fond aggravation that Oikawa had long learned to read.

“No, you idiot. It’s called being polite. Then again, I don't think you've heard of it.” But Iwa-chan crossed his arms and looked away, which told Oikawa he had hit right on the head. Iwa-chan had always been such an easy read, even if he expressed all his emotions with some form of half-hearted anger. Oikawa’s cute little tsundere-chan.

“Of course, but I don’t do it because I wouldn’t want to overshadow Iwa-chan’s attempts,”

This time Iwa-chan elbowed him. Oikawa whined and they sat quietly for a minute.

“I know I said it last year, but it still feels strange, to not see you every day. To not have you bursting in through my door at weird times for dumb reasons--

"--Hey!--"

"--To not see you in class… for you to not be there,” Iwa-chan admitted, all the while refusing to make eye contact. Blood warmed Oikawa’s face in a dizzy rush.

“I still feel the same,” he admitted, not taking his eyes off Iwa-chan’s face and referring to a lot more than Iwa-chan said. It wasn’t fair that Iwa-chan’s modest blushes were more difficult to see on his brown skin compared to Oikawa's translucent complexion. Still, Oikawa decided to save Iwa-chan from the sentimental atmosphere he had created. That's what good friends did. “Of course, it’s no surprise Iwa-chan would miss me~. Who wouldn’t?”

“Shittykawa,”

“What! Why? I am stating true facts!”

“Ya, right. I must be some sort of masochist to miss this,”

“Iwa-chan is so mean to me when I clearly don’t deserve it at all. Why did I travel all this way just to be made fun of?”

“I thought you traveled all this way to toss to Bokuto. He’s ecstatic about it, by the way. Of our top five high school aces, I only ever meet Ushijima. It’s interesting to finally meet Bokuto. He’s different,”

“Not as much of a jerk, I bet,”

“Ushijima was not a jerk, Oikawa. He was just…”

“An arrogant bastard?”

Iwa-chan laughed, “Maybe a little,”

“Maybe a lot,” Oikawa huffed, crossing his arms. 

“Could be worse. I heard he got into your university. He could have accepted,”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. The only thing about him that makes me happy is that he’s in America. That means he’s as far away from me as possible,”

“Remind me again in what way you don’t have a shitty personality?”

“I don’t know what you mean. That was completely pure and genuine,”

“Pft, ya, okay,”

“It was! I meant it with all my heart.” Oikawa placed a hand over his heart in a solemn vow. Iwa-chan snorted and Oikawa joined him. When it started to die down he lifted his head and caught Iwa-chan's eyes, alight with the greys and browns and hints of green that Oikawa had missed so much. Next thing he knew they started laughing while leaning into each other for no real reason. Iwa-chan’s deep laugh resonated through Oikawa’s bones until it felt like he was wrapped in it.

“You- you know, I- I think I belie- believe you,” Iwa-chan managed to force out. One of his hands reached out to steady himself, and it grabbed the wrist laying on Oikawa’s thigh. Oikawa’s laughter stuttered, his lungs trying to take in air instead as his heart skipped, refusing to account for how casual Iwa-chan intended the gesture. Their laughter died down and Oikawa took his opportunity. Throwing side-eyed glances at Iwa-chan, he twisted his wrist and slid it in Iwa-chan’s loose grip, intertwining their fingers where they still rested against Oikawa’s leg.

This was it. Oikawa had laid out his cards. How would Iwa-chan respond?

Iwa-chan looked at their hand and then up at Oikawa. His face relaxed of its usual anger, eyes half-lidded and soft but focused. The smallest hint of a smile still clung to the corner of his lips. Oikawa met Iwa-chan’s gaze from under his own lashes with as much innocence as he could muster. Iwa-chan snorted and mumbled something about ‘pure and genuine,’ but still brought up his other hand to brush against Oikawa’s cheek before resting on the back of Oikawa’s neck, tilting his head in. Callouses brushed over Oikawa’s skin, adding a teasing roughness to the otherwise gentle touch.

Mere centimeters separated them now, and Iwa-chan’s eyes focused with intent on watching the breathy movements of Oikawa’s parted lips. Oikawa wasn’t even sure _Iwa-chan_ knew what Iwa-chan was feeling in that moment because in his eyes and the shape of his brow Oikawa could see too many emotions to count: want, security, tenderness, uncertainty, vulnerability… fear.

All reassuring in their own ironic way. It meant Iwa-chan knew he was making a conscious decision here, one he put thought into. Oikawa couldn’t help that his head bucked forward a bit, their lips so close that he felt the static heat radiating from Hajime’s.

“Hajime…” Oikawa whispered against Hajime’s hot skin.

He wished he hadn’t.

That word must have broken the spell, because Hajime’s eyes snapped back up to meet his in wide-eyed alarm before jerking backward, disengaging entirely as his hand left Oikawa’s neck and his fingers disappeared from Oikawa’s grip. In the first second, Oikawa’s face followed him forward as if magnetized before Oikawa caught himself and leaned back again, disappointment and confusion heavy in his heart. He thought... that had felt so much like a choice...

“We should go back to Akaashi and the others,” Iwa-chan ‘explained’, turning away and standing before Oikawa could say anything. Something caught in Oikawa’s throat. It had to mean something that Iwa-chan thought of Akaashi right after pulling away from almost kissing Oikawa, right? What was that? A mistake? Iwa-chan getting caught in the moment? What reason did he have to stop when Oikawa gave him all the signals to go unless he wasn't sure of his decision? Did knowing that it was a hard choice for Iwa-chan, that Oikawa had a chance, make Oikawa feel better or worse? “Let’s go,”

Iwa-chan’s voice sounded… Oikawa didn’t know, exactly, which hoisted a red flag. Oikawa thought he could pick out the emotion behind any minor inflection of Iwa-chan’s, but this one sounded off. Then it hit him; it reminded him of the sound of Iwa-chan’s voice after that night three years back. Something… bitter.

What did it mean? Oikawa hadn't pulled away this time. Iwa-chan made the decision. 

Oikawa stood and followed Iwa-chan to the door. He passed him in the hallway, still so caught up in his mystery that he almost jumped when he felt Iwa-chan’s hand guide Oikawa forward from the small of his back. Heat rushed down his spine, gathering in his stomach and burning Oikawa’s skin where Iwa-chan’s palm rested, separated only by a thin blue cloth. Why would Iwa-chan do that? After pulling away from a kiss? Oikawa wasn’t sure he could take all this emotional see-sawing. 

"Iwa-chan?" His voice came out dry. He coughed to disguise it.

"I don't think we should be putting ourselves in this position right now," Iwa-chan responded without looking at him. "Between y-our soulmates and your feelings... I can't play this game, Oikawa. Not with you,"

Oikawa tried to swallow. No luck, still dry. _Their_ soulmates but _Oikawa's_ feelings. Okay. Okay. Still, he said ‘right now.’ ‘Right now’ implied a chance.

"I get it." He waved a hand. "Soulmate's are important."

But... not so important Oikawa couldn't compete.

He could work with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Please leave feedback if you can. :-)   
> Oikawa's decided to climb out of his pity party for one and do what he does best, effort his way to the top.


	5. The Definition of a Soulmate: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nishinoya weighs in on what it means to have a soulmate.

Iwa-chan’s hand didn't disappear from the base of Oikawa’s spine until they made it to the living room. Left with his legs the consistency of jelly, Oikawa fell onto the smaller two-seater couch; the three-seater perpendicular to him taken by Bokuto, Yuuji, and a gym bag. A disproportionate burst of satisfaction rushed him when Iwa-chan chose to sit thigh pressed against thigh like in his room. Oikawa had to put effort into keeping himself from melting into it (and keeping himself from thinking too much of it. Akaashi was in a single seat armchair, after all).

“Look who decided to show up,” Yuuji leered, breaking off from a conversation he was having with Bokuto. Said conversation seemed to consist of a lot of half jumping on the sofa and making sweeping arm motions. Even Yuuji’s teasing was half split in attention, still making half a motion at Bokuto.

“Not. Cute,” Oikawa huffed. Yuuji smiled,

“I’m fucking adorable,”

“Oh my god, there are two of you,” Iwa-chan groaned and dropped his head back.

“Don’t be jealous, Iwa-chan, that’s not cute either,”

“Shut up, Shittykawa.” Iwa-chan shoved him and he almost fell straight off the side of the seat.

“Mean! Mean Iwa-chan!”

Karasuno’s libero, walking in from the kitchen with a bag of chips, interrupted whatever Iwa-chan’s reply was going to be with a laugh so loud Oikawa wasn’t sure how such a small body accomplished it. 

“You guys are actually pretty fun, aren’t you?” His head snapped to Oikawa as he pushed aside the bag to take the last seat on the couch, on the other side of Bokuto, “My name’s Nishinoya, by the way! I was Karasuno’s libero, but I’m a university-level libero these days!” He pointed to himself with a broad smile.

“The coolest!” Bokuto chimed in. Had the two made it a competition for who could talk the loudest?

“Inside voice, please,” 

“Sorry, Akaashi!”

“Haha, ‘sorry, Tsukki’.” Everyone turned to Karasuno’s ex-libero. “Sorry, inside joke… Hey, I know you! We played your team in the spring preliminaries of my second year!” Nishinoya’s eyes fell on Yuuji. Oikawa turned to his roommate. He hadn’t known that. Yuuji, sitting on the third spot on the couch, laughed.

“That's me! Terushima Yuuji at your service. I’m feeling a bit defeated though. Now I’m in a room with both teams that defeated us that year. Aoba Johsai in Inter-High and you guys in the spring. I’m starting to think I got in over my head for that three-on-three,”

Bokuto and Nishinoya laughed and Oikawa giggled. This was quite the group they had gotten together, wasn’t it? Oikawa could feel his blood starting to pump in anticipation. No matter what was happening between him and Iwa-chan, volleyball was a constant.

“You guys were a wild team, though! Didn’t you do that spike from out of bounds at the back of the court? And you did that one set that you kicked!”

“Did I? I don’t remember. But I know it was a fun game! And we improved a ton after that!”

“A set that you kicked?” Akaashi asked in confusion. 

“I’m sure it was luck. Our motto was to get the ball into the air no matter what, you know? I probably kicked it up and somebody decided it was good enough to spike. It definitely wasn’t a real set compared to what Oiks (“Oiks?” Iwa-chan whispered beside him) can do… or that setter you had, Nishinoya! The one with the stern face but the wild moves!”

Of all the places for the conversation to go. Oikawa would like to think, though, that he didn’t imagine Iwa-chan’s thigh pressing harder against his own. 

“Kageyama! Ya, he’s really crazy on the court, isn’t he? But you can’t really tell off the court. He looks so grumpy,”

“And he and Shochan have those awesome quicks that go whoosh!” Bokuto added with an arm movement that almost took Yuuji’s head with it. Luckily Yuuji, without even looking, ducked without missing a beat in the conversation.

“You mean the redheaded shorty? No kidding! I thought we had them with our digs, but then it turns out the kid can aim those things! But the setter was a big part of that too! I couldn’t believe someone could toss like that and still have such a stern face... It was a nice face, though. I was thinking about asking for his number instead of your manager’s.”

Oikawa wrinkled his nose. Gross. He did not want to talk about Tobio’s love life (He also didn’t like to think that if things would have worked out differently, it would have been possible that he could have… with someone that Tobio… Ewwww). 

“You should have! It would have been hilarious! Kageyama is a genius on the court, but he’s a social wreck. People used to confess to him all the time, and he could literally never read the signs. He made this one girl cry so much that Shouyou-kun decided to teach him how to reject people kindly--” Oikawa snorted, Iwa-chan shoved him “-- but of course, Shouyou-kun had never rejected anyone, and then Kageyama was too nice and accidentally accepted a confession and then--” Nishinoya waved his hands in front of his chest in a cease motion. “-- He was such a mess, is the point. Hell, it took him months to figure out he had found his soulmate!”

“Tobio-chan found his soulmate?” Oikawa snapped more acidic than he had been hoping for. Iwa-chan elbowed him in the gut. “Oww, Iwa-chan…”

“Ya, get this! It’s Shouyou-kun and neither of them realized it for months!”

“That’s not so rare,” Akaashi started diplomatically.

“Plenty of soulmates have more obscure tells,” Iwa-chan finished (to Oikawa’s consternation) as if part of the same thought.

“That’s the best part! You’d think, ‘okay, so maybe they both fall asleep and wake up at the same time’ or something crazy specific like that, but they were Dreamers! They had literally been having dreams with each other in them since they met! Shouyou-kun thought he just really wanted to get revenge on the ‘King of the Court’ and Kageyama assumed that was a normal close friendship thing. Idiots,”

Something twisted in Oikawa’s gut and he realized that he didn’t like the thought that while everything that went down in middle school between them went down, Kageyama didn’t have someone like Iwa-chan was to Oikawa to support him (didn’t even know what it was like to have something like that). He pushed it aside, though. After all, Kageyama had found his soulmate. Clearly, that wrong was righted.

“Still, he seems much… I don’t know, happier, these days at least. Less angry… I mean, on the inside. He and Shouyou-kun still argue all the time, but getting to know each other really completed him,”

“You don’t need a soulmate to ‘complete you,’” Akaashi's otherwise mild tone held something oddly defensive for someone who had found their soulmate. 

“No, you don’t,” Iwa-chan agreed. Oikawa knew the tone of Iwa-chan’s voice when he was aiming something towards him, but Oikawa couldn't quite figure out the point. 

“For sure! But he and Shouyou-kun are definitely the complimentary-type of soulmates rather than the congruent-type. They’re the same, but complete opposites personality-wise. Getting to know someone as opposite to him as Shouyou has helped Kageyama understand people! guess I’m just getting soft about it ‘cuz they remind me of my Asahi. He’s my soulmate but you’d never guess it by knowing us,”

“You’ve met your soulmate, Noya?! I didn’t know that!” Bokuto leaned forward, alarmed.

“What? I talk about Asahi all the time!”

“But I didn’t know he was your soulmate! You never said!”

“I didn’t? It’s obvious! And to be fair, I thought Akaashi was your soulmate for like a whole month and you never said anything!”

“What? I didn’t know you thought that!” His eyes darted between Akaashi and Iwa-chan as if he thought one of them was going to accuse him of something. Oikawa started to snort, but then both Iwa-chan and Akaashi rolled their eyes in unison. Oikawa crossed his arms with a pout instead.

“I called him your soulmate to your face!”

“I don’t remember… Oh! I thought you were being met-a-phorical!”

“Hahaha! Dude, why would that be metaphorical?”

“I don’t know! People use it like that sometimes!”

“No, they don’t. Have any of you guys ever used that metaphorically?” Nishinoya asked.

“I’m afraid not, Bo-chan,” Oikawa answered.

Bokuto leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms in a pout. Oikawa found himself somewhat impressed that such a big guy could pull off the look so well (though Oikawa supposed he wasn’t one to be talking. Still, he and Bokuto\ were big guys in completely different ways. Bokuto-- with his droopy eye, one ear that wasn’t quite level with the other, thick arched eyebrows, and almost awkwardly big eyes-- didn’t exactly fall into the cuteness category Oikawa did).

“Aww, don’t worry, man. I’ve heard it like that plenty of times!” Yuuji, sitting next to Bokuto, patted him on the back with what looked like excessive force. If it hurt, Bokuto didn’t seem to notice, instead sitting up straight with a starry-eyed,

“Really?”

“Ya, ya. I’ve heard people in relationships outside of their soulmate use it like that,”

“See!!!” Bokuto’s ability to abrupt switch from defeated to triumphant was as impressive as his ability to pull off a pout in the first place. Yuuji laughed as the ace seemed to come back to life beside him. “So the point is, Noya didn’t tell me he found his soulmate! Does anyone else have a super-secret soulmate I didn’t know about?”

“Bokuto, you don’t know anyone else in the room enough for that,” Akaashi sighed. It sounded exasperated, but with a heavy dose of fondness that left Oikawa wondering how long they had been friends.

“I know you, Akaashi!”

Akaashi raised both eyebrows, looked at Bokuto, and then looked at Iwa-chan and back at Bokuto. Despite everything, Oikawa couldn’t help but laugh as Bokuto’s shoulders slumped and his face reddened with his embarrassment. The two of them made a funny pair. Akaashi who kept everything close to his chest and Bokuto who wore every minuscule feeling on his sleeve.

“Oh, right.” Bokuto turned to his companions on the couch, but if he was looking for support he wasn’t finding it. Both Yuuji and Nishinoya laughed at him with abandon. Yuuji began to pat Bokuto’s back some more.

“It’s-- It’s a-alright,” he managed between laughter. “Oiks and I would never keep such a secret from you for a whole--” he checked his bare wrist like it housed a watch-- “twenty minutes of knowing you,” he said. “We haven’t met our soulmates yet. But we’re not looking, either, you know?”

Iwa-chan tensed against Oikawa’s side and Oikawa could see Iwa-chan looking at him out of the corner of his eye. But Yuuji was right. Even after all this, Oikawa still wasn’t sure he wanted to meet his soulmate. He didn’t think he could give any more of himself to someone than he could back when he was still waiting for Iwa-chan. Not yet. He just… If Akaashi and Iwa-chan were heading towards being an item, he needed some time. If that moment in Iwa-chan’s room and that hand at the small of Oikawa’s back had meant something-- which it definitely felt like it did-- then the last thing he wanted was another soulmate trying to complicate things.

“How about you?” Yuuji asked. Iwa-chan looked away from Oikawa and finished his water bottle. 

“I haven’t met mine. But I don’t mind so much, either. I want to meet them real bad, of course, but I’m also completely happy with everything I have now.” He turned his head to smile at Akaashi, and Oikawa swore the other man’s skin became tinged pink as he looked down and away.

Wait. Were--

“Shit, we’re going to be late for the court I reserved,” Iwa-chan interrupted, now looking down at his phone. Which meant there was no way he had caught that look...

“Then let’s go! Grand King! You have to aim one of your serves at me! I saw it in your last game and they look even tougher than in high school!”

“Ya! Akaashi, you haven’t set for me in forever! And I want to hit Oikawa’s sets too!” Bokuto jumped in, actually jumping up to crouch on the couch in the process. Yuuji joined him with a cheer and then pushed Bokuto off the couch. In turn, Bokuto reached back and dragged Yuuji off with him.

Before Oikawa could process it, they were all rushing out the door with their gym bags in a beeline for the school volleyball courts, all else forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept forgetting to post this. XD  
> Anyway, leave a comment if you have any thoughts.


	6. New Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bokuto learns that sometimes a poorly aimed spike is worth a thousand words and Oikawa learns that people can surprise you.

When they made it to the gym, the group decided to make things exciting and flip a coin for teams. The first three people to get heads were on one team, and the rest on the other. So Bokuto, Oikawa, and Yuuji ended up on one side, and Nishinoya, Akaashi, and Iwa-chan ended up on the other. 

As much as Oikawa wanted to set for Bokuto, he felt somewhat disappointed with the results as he watched Iwaizumi and Akaashi walk to the other side of the net. He did his best to push that feeling aside as they took their positions.

He served first and, as a generous favor, brought the ball to Nishinoya’s side of the court. Though he put a sharp swerve on it so Nishinoya had to break his form to dive for the receive. He managed to bring it up, but not quite to where the setter would be in an ordinary game. Akaashi positioned himself underneath and set to Iwaizumi on the far left of the court. Bokuto and Yuuji closed in for the block and jumped with impressively synchronized timing. The spike hit Yuuji’s arm, but it did so at an angle and fell at the front of the court on the blocker’s side anyway.

“Wooo!” Nishinoya yelled. “But Grand King, you’re going to have to serve those at me until I can receive it perfectly, got it!?”

“And if our teams face each other, libero-chan? Why would I give you the advantage before the game even starts!”

Akaashi walked over to flip the score and they started the next point.

Setting to Bokuto ended up being as challenging as Oikawa hoped. The only consistency he demanded involved a toss farther from the net than average. Outside of that, the best toss depended on what he wanted to do with it, with a range of straights and crosses that didn’t always seem to be the obvious choice in the moment. His downright genius feints never failed to surprise. They always looked like they would slam onto the court right up to the moment they didn’t. Still, Oikawa figured he must have done a fair job unraveling Bokuto because they won the set. Bokuto and Yuuji celebrated by chest-bumping in midair, almost knocking each other to the ground. Oikawa settled for high-fives.

Figuring Bokuto out entertained him enough that Oikawa was happy when the next set kept them on the same side-- only switching out Yuuji for Nishinoya-- despite Iwaizumi and him continuing to oppose each other. The change did help their side’s defense, which was where they had been lacking the last go around. They won again, this time by an even larger margin.

“Boooo!” Yuuji laughed from the other side of the court. “No fair! You guys are all starters on nationally-ranked teams! I call cheats!”

“Don’t be a sore loser, Yu-chan!” 

Bokuto, meanwhile, threw Nishinoya into the air with impressive height. 

The next set, however, ironically enough switched out Oikawa and Iwaizumi. That left Oikawa’s team with two setters and Yuuji. Since Oikawa knew Karasuno’s old libero could set, it didn't surprise him when the set went to them. It worsened when Yuuji and Noya switched. Oikawa found himself on a team with not only two setters, but a libero as the last member. Akaashi could spike alright, but nothing challenging to block if the others saw it coming. Noya couldn’t spike at all. That left Oikawa as the only real attacker, (and not by a wide margin-- he worked on his spikes more than most setters did, but was nothing impressive without the element of surprise). As a result, their attacks were predictable and Oikawa barely set at all. Needless to say, they lost that one.

Finally, in the next set, Oikawa smiled as he jogged over to join Iwaizumi and Yuuji in facing Bokuto, Akaashi, and Nishinoya. 

For all that Oikawa enjoyed figuring Bokuto out, he couldn’t deny that setting the ball the way he knew Iwa-chan liked it relaxed parts of him he hadn’t even realized had been tense. He didn’t know if the ball had ever left his fingers with such easy control. He liked to think Iwaizumi felt the same hitting Oikawa’s tosses. 

Oikawa became so occupied watching Iwaizumi's follow-through, and the small pleased corner-of-the-mouth smile that accompanied it, he almost missed Bokuto’s approach. He and Iwaizumi managed to cut off a straight, but Bokuto hit a sharp cross that went right past Oikawa’s arms and towards a waiting Yuuji. 

The spike had a curve to it that Yuuji didn’t notice until the ball deviated from the path of his receive. He jumped to the side to reach it and ending up overcorrecting. The sound of rubber hitting flesh echoed through the gym as the ball beamed him in the face.

Oikawa snorted.

“Nice receive!”

“Ahhh! Are you okay?! I’m sorry!” Bokuto shouted over Nishinoya’s laughter, lifting and half ducking under the net. He didn’t have much to worry about as Yuuji’s laughter soon joined them.

Oikawa was about to turn back to the front when that laughter cut itself off. He swiveled back to see Yuuji sitting on the ground staring at his hand, silent. It was such a strange thing for Yuuji that Oikawa already moved to kneel at his side before he could process it further.

“Is he alright?” asked Akaashi from the other side of the court, probably alerted by Oikawa’s alarm as much as the sudden silence. 

“Yuuji?” Oikawa asked in confusion. Yuuji looked up at him.

“I… I’m bleeding,”

“Wha…” That’s when Oikawa saw it. Yuuji’s fingers had blood on them, blood from Yuuji’s dripping nose. Oikawa’s first thought was that it was only a nosebleed, so why… Then he remembered why Yuuji didn’t have any piercings. Yuuji didn’t bleed. Not unless… They made eye contact for a stunned moment before both their heads snapped over to where Bokuto stood half under the net.

“Oikawa? What’s wrong?” Iwaizumi walked closer. “It’s just a nosebleed,”

“A nosebleed!? I’m sorry! Are you okay?! Do you need to see a nurse!? I can carry you!” Bokuto decided to finish ducking under the net and jogged to where they sat on the ground. Akaashi and Nishinoya followed. Yuuji stared up at Bokuto. 

“Holy shit. Holy shit!” He jumped up and grabbed onto Bokuto’s shoulders, ignoring the blood dripping down his chin.

“Wha…”

“I’m bleeding!”

“Did he hit his head?” Iwa-chan asked Oikawa out of the corner of his mouth. Oikawa snorted. So did Akaashi, much to Oikawa’s disdain.

“Don’t ruin the mood, Iwa-chan,”

“The mood?” Iwa-chan and Akaashi both repeated. Iwaizumi’s tone struck angrier than Akaashi’s confused deadpan, but they both wore the same raised eyebrow expression. Oikawa suddenly didn't feel so generous. He made a waving motion with one arm and then crossed it with his the other.

“Wait right here!” Yuuji ran off to his gym bag, leaving a confused Bokuto behind. He returned with the same needle-pen he had used to show his invulnerability to Oikawa. He took one of Bokuto’s fingers.

Akaashi’s eyes widened and he swayed back a little.

“Only my soulmate can draw my blood,” Yuuji explained as he lined the pen up with Bokuto’s finger.

“Hey! Me too! And I used to have a needle just like-- Ow!”

Yuuji depressed the plunger and a little bead of red balanced on the pad of Bokuto’s index finger. Bokuto stared for a few seconds.

“I’m bleeding!” His head snapped up and immediately found Akaashi. “Akaashi, I’m…!” His voice trailed off and his thick eyebrows came together.

“Congratulations, Bokuto-san.” 

Oikawa hadn’t heard Akaashi use an honorific with Bokuto before.

“Congratulations, Bokuto-san!” Nishinoya echoed with much greater excitement coloring every syllable.

Bokuto smiled and looked back towards Yuuji with even wider eyes than normal. 

“You’re my soulmate!”

“Ya! And You’re my soulmate!”

“Wow!”

“Wow!”

“What’s your favorite color!?”

“All of them!”

“Me too!”

“Favorite animal?!”

“Great horned owl!”

“Your hair is like an owl!”

“I know! What’s yours?”

“Monkeys!”

“Ahhhh! I love monkeys!”

“What ab--”

“Yuuji-chan. Isn’t there something you should tell Bokuto?” Oikawa couldn’t help but remember Yuuji’s words about his plans for his soulmate. Bokuto seemed… rash, and excitable. He didn’t want to see anyone hurt by a misunderstanding… Bokuto or Yuuji. Yuuji’s excitement cracked for a moment.

Iwa-chan looked at Oikawa with a very strange expression for a moment.

Yuuji regained his steam, putting his arms around Bokuto’s neck and jumping onto him. In an instinctive motion, Bokuto caught him under his legs.

“Wha…”

“You offered to carry me, right? You probably don’t know this, but it turns out blood tastes kind of bad. Let’s find some paper towels.”

“I…” Bokuto looked at Akaashi. Akaashi smiled and nodded, though Oikawa thought he saw something… more in his usually flat eyes. 

Nishinoya wolf-whistled as Bokuto carried Yuuji away, probably to the bathrooms. 

“This is perfect. Yuuji-chan is going to owe me forever and ever.”

Iwa-chan _rudely_ shoved him. “Stop acting like you masterminded this. It happened by complete chance,”

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t have happened without me,” Oikawa wisely pointed out. He only half thought out his words, though. He was too busy watching the way Iwa-chan used his short-sleeve to wipe his forehead, bicep flexing with the motion and causing a vein to jump.

“Uh-huh. And what if I hadn’t invited you? Or Bokuto hadn’t decided to visit before that?”

What were they talking about? … Right.

“True, but I’m the one who brought Yuuji. That makes me the last link in the chain!”

Iwa-chan paused, regrettably lowering his arms and studying Oikawa’s face.

“Yuuji?… Oikawa, what’s... are you two…”

Oikawa knew what Iwa-chan was trying to say, but he didn’t know how to reply. The short and truthful answer was no, but answering like that felt like hiding something, even if he wasn't. It should have been a relief when he didn’t have to think of a way to explain. Iwa-chan’s question hardly trailed off before he caught sight of Akaashi. 

“One second, Oikawa.”

Iwa-chan didn’t wait for Oikawa’s reply before he put a hand on Akaashi’s shoulder and walked him a little ways away. 

It didn't feel like a relief.

The two of them began a low conversation, Akaashi fiddling with his fingers and looking towards the door Bokuto and Yuuji left from. Iwaizumi stood close and gave Akaashi Keiji very soft looks (okay, maybe not very soft, but very soft for Iwa-chan!). Oikawa crossed his arms and looked away.

“Looks like you’re next, Grand King,” Nishinoya elbowed him. 

“Huh?” Oikawa looked down and noticed a line of faded out zeros on the inside of Nishinoya's wrist; the remains of a soulmate timer.

“You’re next of us in line to find your soulmate!”

“... I’m the only one left,”

“Which means you’ll be next!” Oikawa smiled.

“Whatever you say, libero-chan.”

Soon after, Bokuto came back into the room practically skipping, much to Oikawa’s surprise. Yuuji followed, looking happy as well.

“We’re in the clear, Oikkun,” Yuuji announced once he was close enough. Iwa-chan’s eyes darted to them and then back to Akaashi.

“He has a--”

“Something like that. He was actually worried about telling me he didn’t want more! Maybe the universe knows what it’s doing, sometimes,”

“Maybe,” Oikawa admitted as he watched Bokuto hug Akaashi with a dramatic twirl.

Soulmates had always seemed like a promise, to Oikawa. He’d thought Yuuji’s stance was strange, but…

From beside Akaashi, Iwa-chan finally turned completely and made eye contact with Oikawa.

How did he feel about Akaashi anyway? In the time Oikawa’s seen them together he didn’t get the particular feeling that they were together in that way. It’s been months. What did that mean?

Oikawa didn’t know what it meant for Iwaizumi and Akaashi, but he knew what it meant for himself. It meant Oikawa had more than a vague chance. It meant despite being soulmates, they weren’t fitting together like the complementary pieces that made up Oikawa and Iwaizumi.

It meant the time to back out and let Iwa-chan passively find his happiness was over. Oikawa had done his part. He had given their relationship time to run a course and it hadn’t. Akaashi Keiji had his chance and Oikawa had waited more than enough time.

So... why did Iwaizumi want to pretend otherwise? When Iwaizumi said 'not right now' Oikawa had been ready to take that at its word and wait. But if he wasn't interested in Akaashi why did he want Oikawa to wait? What were they waiting for?

Oikawa, no matter how he watched over their weekend stay, didn’t have an answer by the end of it. What he did know was that Iwaizumi gave him warning glances anytime Oikawa got too direct or suggestive. What he did know was that whatever it was, Iwaizumi did not want to talk about it directly. What he did know was that Akaashi Keiji sure spent a lot of time watching Oikawa with a look Oikawa didn’t know him well enough to place exactly, but that definitely wasn’t anything approaching jealousy.

On the train ride home, with Iwaizumi on his mind and Yuuji chattering about Bokuto at his side, Oikawa could feel nothing but dissatisfaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuji has that more mischievous reckless energy while Bo has a more innocent version of the same energy, so I thought their interactions could be fun.  
> But did I low key do this because I love Bochan too much to let him go just yet? You better believe it.  
> If you have a take, let me know.


	7. Speaking Out Loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone says some words they don't know the implications of. Some to absolutely unpredictable and far-reaching consequences. Except for Bokuto. Bokuto is a good boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: i don't really know how to phrase this right, but brief pointed ableism towards mental illness (it is directly addressed). Google tells me the word for that is 'mentalism' but i've never heard or come across that used. See end notes for more specific information.

“So, Iwa-chan…”

Iwaizumi glared at him from the other side of the screen.

“Shut up,”

“What!? Why!? I didn’t even say anything!”

“You’re going to say something annoying,”

“Hmph. Rude and presumptuous. I only wanted to ask how your beloved soulmate is doing, because I’m considerate and gracious and--”

“I already told you to shut up.” Iwaizumi gritted his teeth. “And… Akaashi is fine. He has a big exam coming up, so he’s a bit stressed, but he’ll do fine.” Oikawa was not a fan of the way Iwaizumi’s voice softened as he spoke. It was almost a relief when his tone hardened again as he said, “So drop it. My soulmate’s not the issue here, and you know it.” 

Oikawa crossed his arms and looked away. He didn’t want to touch that statement, but desperation to know more drove him onwards.

“Oh? Isn’t it? So if I came over right now and--”

“You’re an asshole. I’m not your fucking plaything, Oikawa,”

“What?” Oikawa reeled, startled at the heat as audible in Iwazumi’s voice as it was visible on his face. Iwaizumi always seemed to be displaying one form of anger or another, but rarely was it so genuine. Oikawa knew Iwaizumi inside and out. It troubled him that he didn’t know what he did to cause such an aggressive response. “Plaything? Iwa-chan, I would never--”

“No. Shut up. If you can’t decide what you want, that’s on you. I don’t want anything to do with it. And I don’t need your pity,”

“It’s not pity!” Why in the world would it be pity? Over what? Why wouldn’t Iwaizumi listen to him about this?

“And I have no way to know that! Sorry, Oikawa. I can’t trust that until you’ve made an actual choice. I can’t go through what we went through when high school ended. Not again,”

“Iwa-ch--”

“No. I said I don’t want to fucking talk about it. I’ve got to go. Talk to you soon.”

With that, Iwaizumi disconnected the call, leaving Oikawa staring at his screen in building frustration.

Any attempt to bring the topic up with Iwaizumi ended that way. Not only did Iwaizumi not want to talk about any chance of them starting a relationship, but he avoided it with prejudice.

It was strange. Usually, Oikawa was the one avoiding conversations he didn’t want to have. He didn’t know how to circumvent this change in their dynamic. Sometimes, the avoidance felt like an answer in its own right. Oikawa wanted to understand what Iwaizumi felt for Akaashi, what he felt for Oikawa, and what he wanted going forward. But the fact that Iwaizumi didn’t even want to talk to Oikawa about his love life felt like a clear hint that he didn’t want Oikawa in it.

The fact that they almost kissed on two separate occasions felt like a clear hint of the exact opposite. 

If he was going to get Iwaizumi to talk more, though, it wouldn’t be over a screen. Summer break was coming up, and they would both be back in Miyagi across the street from each other soon enough. They could talk then. And Oikawa would have the added benefit of being able to use his birthday as leverage to start the conversation. It was his twentieth, too, so maybe alcohol could be his friend for once and help him out a bit in that regard.

In the meantime, Bokuto became a semi-regular visitor in Oikawa and Yuuji’s shared apartment. It wasn’t constant. Bokuto had school and volleyball too, after all. And it wasn’t every time he had a day off or anything either. He showed up for a weekend occasionally, which suited Yuuji just fine.

Whatever Yuuji’s stance on soulmates, he loved it when Bokuto was around. He immediately introduced Bokuto to all his friends. He brought Bokuto along to all his parties, and they both came back singing carols even though Bokuto stayed sober. Yuuji stood firm, though. As much as he liked having Bokuto there, he didn’t seem to miss him when he was gone either. They didn’t even talk when they were apart besides the occasional text. Yet, when they met again, it became like they were never apart.

Bokuto had told Yuuji no on the casual sex thing, though, much to Yuuji’s vocal disappointment. 

“I get it, Oikkun, I do. It’s special to him. Meaningful, or whatever. But that body! Have you seen his shoulders? It really sucks. Maybe one day,” 

“How dreadful.” Oikawa rolled his eyes.

Yuuji had also, with the help of his new soulmate, finally gotten the piercings he wanted. The ears they had done alone. The tongue was a little trickier, and they ended up having a professional guide Bokuto’s hand. Now, Oikawa found it hard to imagine Yuuji without the gleam of silver in his mouth. It definitely suited him. Yuuji wanted a bar through his eyebrow, too, but decided to give Bokuto a break. Especially since Bokuto needed Yuuji to draw his blood for some long overdue team physicals. 

One Sunday morning, Oikawa walked into the kitchen after a shower to find Bokuto making eggs in the kitchen while Yuuji lay face down on the sofa, groaning.

“You remember I was telling you about Kuroo?” Bokuto asked. His booming voice made it clear he had no appreciation for hangovers. Still, it was pretty impressive Bokuto got Yuuji out of bed before noon after a night out. “Well, Kuroo thinks we should get together sometime and go out. You two would love each other!”

Yuuji continued to groan.

“Hey, Oikawa!” Bokuto refocused his attention as Oikawa sauntered into the kitchen. 

“Good Morning, Bo-chan,” Oikawa drawled out. Bokuto colored a bit. Yuuji made some more sounds from the couch that Oikawa could only assume translated to ‘stop teasing my soulmate.’ It was hardly Oikawa’s fault that Bokuto, rightfully so, found Oikawa intimidatingly attractive (and maybe it made Oikawa feel better, knowing that being friends with Akaashi Keiji wasn’t enough to immunize him towards Oikawa). 

“Would you like eggs?” Bokuto took the whole pan off the stove to shove it at Oikawa, who had to step back to avoid being burnt.

“Two-- over easy-- please.” He continued to the pantry to get some water.

“You’ve got it!” Bokuto pulled off a flick of his wrists that had the eggs inside flipping like Olympic gymnasts. 

“Oh, Bo-chan’s a chief! How impressive!”

Yuuji made another sound like the first. Bokuto laughed, a little bashful but still loud. 

“Mom and Dad own a little restaurant,” he explained. “Me and my brothers and sisters learned a bit,”

Oikawa hummed in appreciation as he found a seat. 

“So, who’s Kuroo- Ow!” The stool screeched against the tiled floor as Oikawa jerked away from it.

Bokuto’s attention snapped back to him. Yuuji even managed to lift his head above the back of the couch to look, though it fell again when he decided the apartment wasn’t burning down.

“What happened?!”

“Nothing, nothing. I’m okay, Bo-chan,” Oikawa assured, inspecting the seat, with one hand on his stinging back. For a moment, he thought he sat on something sharp, but he didn’t see a culprit. Plus, the pain sat higher up on his back, and it felt too widespread to be a bee sting or something. Dread coursed through him. He already had a weak knee, he didn’t need anything else. Oikawa bit his lip as he sat back down. At the stove, Bokuto turned back to the food, flipping the eggs he was currently working on onto a plate.

“Yuuji! Food!”

The volume made Oikawa flinch, and he thought Yuuji might have sobbed. Thankfully, their other two roommates had already left for the day. Bokuto, noticing neither reaction, went to the fridge for more eggs.

Regardless of Bokuto’s lack of grace, Yuuji dragged himself off the couch to take a seat next to Oikawa. His head landed on the counter as he slowly took the eggs apart with his fork. 

“Koutarou, you need to start drinking. I can’t suffer like this alone any longer if we want this relationship to work,” he near begged. Oikawa snorted.

“That’s why you should meet Kuroo! He drinks. Even though he shouldn’t. And neither should you. We’re underage, you know,”

“Kou, you are less than three months away. Why does everyone in my life have a stick up their ass?”

“I do not! And I know I’m close…” He cracked as many eggs as would fit into the pan. “But I wouldn’t drink anyway,” he finished, adding salt and pepper. Yuuji tilted his head so it rested on his chin while he looked at his soulmate. Bokuto’s lack of eye contact struck Oikawa as too intentional to be as casual as Bokuto intended. 

“Wha? Why not? You some kind of evangelical?”

“... My therapist thinks it would be a bad idea. She says alcohol is a depressive, and I have depressive episodes, sometimes, which drinking could make worse. I also have a mood disorder that she says makes me more likely to use alcohol as a crutch and get addicted. She says it would be better if I never start. Plus it could react weird with my medication anyway,”

The flat public honesty left Oikawa untethered. Something about Yuuji’s entire being shifted from relaxed to tense. He lifted his head and put his hands flat on the counter.

“You have a therapist? Why?”

Bokuto looked up in wide-eyed surprise at the tone. The feeling that this should be a more private conversation encroached on Oikawa.

“Mostly for the mood disorder. But Akaashi asked me to get one after he saw a depressive episode.” Bokuto’s golden eyes shimmered with something very close to becoming hurt as his shoulders scrunched inwards. In the continuing list of Bokuto’s idiosyncrasies, Oikawa couldn’t help but note that it was strange that such a big man could make himself so small.

“Why? Does he think you’re crazy or something?” Bokuto whined like a kicked puppy, and Oikawa almost flinched.

Yikes.

Still, the fierceness in Yuuji’s words seemed less like an accusation towards Bokuto and more like a defense against Akaashi. To Oikawa’s relief, Bokuto seemed to pick up on the tone and didn’t look as offended as he could have been. The hurt, though, was undeniable as he tilted his head in the perfect picture of owl-like confusion. 

“No. Akaashi cares a lot about me and doesn’t want to see me get that bad again… that shouldn’t scare you,”

“What?!” Yuuji jerked backward.

“I don’t know why, but that scares you.”

Maybe Bokuto deserved more credit than Oikawa had been giving him. He wasn’t as dense as Oikawa had been assuming.

Yuuji’s eyes darted to Oikawa before going back to Bokuto. Oikawa, also not being dense, decided to take his leave.

“Bo-chan, why don’t you call me when my eggs are done… way done. I have to get ready to face the day. It could take a while,” he promised as he got up.

“Huh? Oh, okay. I will!” If Bokuto called him back in two minutes, Oikawa was going to have to rescind his designation of intelligence. 

The last thing Oikawa heard before closing the door to the bathroom was Yuuji’s voice whispering, “Depressive episodes?” in a tone Oikawa had never heard from him. Something demanding, but also hesitant. Oikawa promised himself that if Bokuto left hurt or angry, Oikawa would have a conversation with Yuuji. Bokuto was a good guy, he deserved better.

That didn’t mean Oikawa wanted to have to have that conversation.

He tried to shake his trepidation and instead concentrated on styling his hair.

He wouldn’t realize how significant that interaction was to him-- and not at all for the reasons it seemed-- until five in the evening that day, after practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: The word 'crazy' is used in a direct derogatory manner by a relevant character and our protagonist leaves the situation before anything can be really resolved.
> 
> Ooo, looks like we'll be diving into the thick of things soon enough. If you have any thoughts, consider leaving them. XD


	8. Self Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing Oikawa needed was another cog thrown into the mess of his relationship with Iwaizumi. He really wished Shiritorizawa's ex-libero hadn't opened his mouth.

“Oikawa-san!” 

The shout of his name disrupted the usual bustle of the locker room after practice.

Yamagata, a new libero on the team, didn’t seem to care about the spectacle he made of it. He had a lot of confidence for a newbie, but he had been Shiratorizawa’s libero after all. Which, by the way, Oikawa thought he did a saint-like job of ignoring when it came to getting along with him.

The locker room was loud, but Yamagata was louder, and the immediate area turned to him. It was a good thing Oikawa wasn’t shy either, as the attention caught him in only his boxers.

“What is it?” Oikawa trilled. He didn’t know what Yamagata could want from him. It wasn’t like the libero was going to ask for a toss, and they weren’t particular friends. 

“That’s a really cool tattoo!”

“You have a tattoo?” asked another team member from the locker room bench. “Huh, you don’t seem the type,”

Oikawa laughed. “What? I don’t have a tattoo,”

“Yes you do. I’m looking right at it. Is it just paint?”

“He’s right,” a wing spiker standing next to Oikawa tilted to look at Oikawa’s back, “and that’s not painted. It’s definitely a tattoo.” Oikawa froze. A suddenly appearing tattoo really only had one explanation. No. He refused. He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t managed to corner Iwa-chan or--

“It’s a new soulmate mark, isn’t it?” Someone else asked. To recollect himself, Oikawa tried to take note of who. He made it a point to know his teammates’ strengths, including good intuition. Their current libero, Yaku, stared back from the other side of the locker room. Well, that didn’t help Oikawa. There wasn’t much he could do for the libero as a setter. Maybe he should teach him how to set.

“Is it!? Did you find your soulmate?”

As hard as he tried, Oikawa couldn’t keep on that train of thought for long, though. His ability to keep things straight teetered like a volleyball on the edge of the net. 

Okay, so he had a tattoo somewhere on his back. When was the last time he looked at his back? Yesterday? Two days ago? None of his teammates had pointed it out before, but it’s not like they sat around watching him change, or like most of them would bother to comment on something like that. 

Oikawa turned to face the room.

“Have any of you noticed it before now?” he demanded. He got various shrugs and apologetic ‘not particularly’s. “Does anyone know if it was there yesterday?” More ambiguous noises.

“It wasn’t,” a middle blocker said before turning back to his own locker without another word.

“Okay. Okay,” Oikawa whispered to himself, thinking back. He couldn’t remember meeting anyone new after practice yesterday or this morning.

He needed to know what it looked like. He wasn’t about to ask, though. He had a reputation to uphold and asking right now sounded much too desperate. Reputation didn’t even have anything to do with it. Oikawa wasn’t desperate. He didn’t even want... he needed to know, was all. He needed to know if he would recognize who it belonged to. 

“Well, it looks like Oikawa-san has a mission now~,” he laughed flippantly as he finished slipping his shirt over his head.

A few ‘good luck’s and a couple of ‘congratulations’ held him up, but he still made it out of the locker room and onto the bus in record time. 

A soulmark. Oikawa had a soulmate tattoo on his back. In the last twenty-four hours, he had come across, met, or been connected to his soulmate in some way.

This was supposed to be a happy time, yet with every minute, Oikawa’s dread mounted higher.

What would they want from him? What would they expect? Would they be looking for romance? Regardless of how things had worked out for Yuuji and Bokuto, most people were. Oikawa couldn’t think of a single soulmate pair on mainstream television that wasn’t a couple. They would at least expect some sort of effort on his part to make that sort of connection work. But he couldn’t, not until he got Iwaizumi to speak to him. Oikawa realized that he might have to accept that Iwaizumi made a choice. Still, Oikawa couldn’t allow himself to give up until he was satisfied that every type of road, detour, and possible path to his destination was defunct. 

How was he supposed to explain that without disappointing his... _soulmate_?

Oikawa walked through his front door, finding Bokuto near the couch, grabbing his bag to head out, Yuuji by his side. By then, Oikawa had worked himself up so much he didn’t think for a moment about striping his shirt off and presenting his back to Yuuji.

“What does it look like?” He demanded. With his back to Yuuji, he stood staring straight at Bokuto, who reddened and attempted to look anywhere but Oikawa’s torso. How did this guy survive in a locker room with Akaashi Keiji for two years?

“Well, my scratch marks have healed and… and that tattoo was not there before… you found your soulmate?!”

“You met your soulmate!!!” Bokuto echoed with a broad grin, forgetting his bashfulness and dropping his bag next to the door. 

“No! My teammates say it wasn’t there yesterday, but I don’t remember meeting anyone new between then and now. What does it look like?” He twisted around, but the most Oikawa could make out of it was a dark shape, maybe with some purple?

“Wait a sec, I’ll snap a picture.” Yuuji did so and showed Oikawa the results… No doubt about it, Oikawa had a tattoo. 

Smaller than a palm and asymmetrical, it sat at the lower left of his back. The first meaningful detail Oikawa noticed was the deep space landscape, with stars and the purple-blue arm of a galaxy and Saturn visible near the top. The second was the odd shape of the scene: the silhouette of a sitting pet with its head looking up at Oikawa’s spine, one paw raised, and its tail curled playfully behind it. It would be lying to say Oikawa didn’t like the aesthetic, even if he had never considered getting a tattoo (even if it tied him to some stranger). Still, it didn’t tell him any more about who the other half of his pair was.

Maybe... maybe that was a good thing. Maybe Oikawa just passed them on the street, making them impossible to find. Being one of the Missed wouldn’t be ideal, but it would, perhaps, make things easier, less complicated, with Iwaizumi. 

“Space cat,” Yuuji laughed. Bokuto made a rising sound of excitement. 

“Did you say space cat?! Can I see!?”

“Go ahead, Bo-chan,”

“I know this tattoo!” Bokuto shouted almost immediately as he rounded Oikawa’s back. Oikawa snapped around to look at him, Oikawa’s reassurances to himself shattering.

“What?”

“Ya! Remember I was telling you about my best friend, Kuroo? He has the same one! Well, it moves on him, but it’s the same design,”

“That must be it,” Yuuji added, “You don’t remember meeting anyone, right? They’re not always about a direct meeting. It might have been activated by Bokuto telling you about Kuroo in some way!” Yuuji and Bokuto high fives each other like they’d solved a mystery together.

“I guess…” Oikawa started, biting his lip. Less than an hour ago, he didn’t know his soulmate. Ten minutes ago they could have been anyone. A few seconds ago, they may have been someone he’d never meet. Now they had a name and a best friend and expectations. 

They were also male, which was a whole other thing. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised Oikawa considering events with Yuuji. However, he still didn’t expect it of a soulmate who wasn’t Iwaizumi. Perhaps that indicated it wasn’t meant to be romantic? ... The straws he grasped at fell through his fingers with such ease they may as well have been liquid.

“I’ll call him! He’s gonna be real happy. He’s had this tattoo for a while! He thought he might have...” Bokuto trailed off. Yuuji and Oikawa shuffled. Being a Missed, someone who had missed their soulmate in some way… it wasn’t something people talked about in polite company. Unlike your soulmate having died, the connotations were somewhat more… pathetic. “But I’ll call him!”

“No!” 

Both Yuuji and Bokuto stared at Oikawa, Bokuto with his phone already in hand.

“... How about you give me his number,” Oikawa smiled, too wide judging by the way Yuuji looked at him. “I’d prefer to break it to him myself! If he has had it for a while, it might not even be me anyway.” He passed Bokuto his phone. “Could you send me the picture of it, please, Yuuji-chan?”

“Oh, okay. That works too!” Bokuto’s enthusiasm didn’t seem to waver as he added the contact to Oikawa’s phone. In contrast, Yuuji sent the picture and then watched Oikawa with one eyebrow raised. “But you have to tell me when you tell him! I can’t wait to congratulate him! I should get him flowers! He’ll find it funny!”

“And Kou is pretty bad at keeping secrets,” Yuuji added meaningfully. Bokuto looked at him and wilted a bit.

“Ya, a little,” he popped back up, “but I’ll keep this one! It’s only for a little while! I probably won’t even talk to him before you do!” He promised, handing Oikawa back his phone.

“Doesn’t he play volleyball with you? You have practice tomorrow,”

“Oh, ya! But that’s later,”

“So you better tell him soon, Oikkun,”

“Yuuji-chan, you are so not cute,”

Bokuto looked between them, seeming to realize he missed the subtext of the conversation. 

“As soon as you tell him, you should text Kou so he can text Kuroo and tell him that it’s true,”

“Oh, good idea!” Oikawa chirped, mouth tight.

Oikawa knew Yuuji was doing him a favor, trying to keep him from procrastinating, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t resent him for it. Still, Oikawa knew he had the right idea. Procrastinating wouldn’t get him anywhere, not with a mutual connection in Bokuto. It was better to rip off the band-aid.

“Will do~!” He promised Bokuto, “Now, you better hurry out if you want to catch the train you wanted~,”

“Ah! You’re right! Are you coming, Yuuji?”

“Ya, sure thing! See you later, Oiks.”

Thirty seconds later found him alone in the apartment. 

Oikawa took a deep breath and opened his contacts, staring at the innocent new entry of ‘Kuroo Tetsurou.’ It kind of helped to know, though, that he actually had the brighter side of the deal in a way, with time to prepare. When he sent this text, he was going to abruptly change Kuroo’s life (if they were soulmates, and this wasn’t all some misunderstanding). 

Well, it was best to do this when he felt perfectly relaxed, so he decided to save it for bed. He had all his homework done, so it wasn’t like that was too long to wait. Plus, it would give him time to mentally compose the perfect message.

Oikawa then proceeded to make and eat dinner, put on his pajamas, brush his teeth and hair, do some light stretches, and moisturize, all without thinking at all about what he would write. Sitting on his bed, he even willed himself to feel horny so that he could have an excuse to take care of one more thing before he had to face this.

But once he had thrown everything away and washed up again, no more excuses presented themselves.

Curled into his bed, nestled by his pillows, and partly under his blankets, Oikawa opened his phone and composed a message to his newest contact.

Oikawa’s soulmate was better off knowing what kind of person Oikawa was right off the bat (if they were really soulmates, that is). After all, if you’re going to hit something, hit it ‘till it breaks, right? 

hello, Tetsu-chan!

Oikawa hit send for his first message with much more confidence than he felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the top. to the top. to the top. to the top.  
> guys. i'm dying. mha is still airing, the last two episodes murdered me, and we're only a couple days from haikyuu and i cannot handle this much hype at once. guys... also, i keep remembering that Oikawa and Iwaizumi are gone, and i cannot handle that either. but my baby Goshiki who i thought i'd never see again is in the trailer, so there's that. so is dear tendo? tho i doubt that'll be for more than a few minutes... guys. also, new animation style? i'm down, looks cute enough.... guys... i really need to start a fandom tumblr so i have somewhere better to freak out into the void XD. but if you never hear from me again, i died of hype.
> 
> um... right, this chapter. it exists. criticism welcome. 
> 
> guys.


End file.
